
PRESEXTKl/ BT^ *Xfi 



Labor Problems 

and 

Labor Legislation 




JOHN B. ANDREWS, Ph.D. 



Secretary, American Association for Labor Legislation 

Joint Author, History of Labor in the United States 

Member, President's Conference on Unemployment 

Editor, American Labor Legislation Review 



(Second Edition Completely Revised) 



American Association for Labor Legislation 

131 East 23d Street, New York City 

1922 






Gin 

Publisher 

NO* 18 1921 



Contents 



Foreword 



Employment 9 

Distribution of labor supply — Regulation of private 
employment agencies — Public employment offices — 
Public Work — Regularization of industry 

Wages 27 

Payment of wages — Minimum wage laws 

Hours 45 

First modern factory law — Women's hour legislation — 
Night work — Regulation of men's hours — Eight-hour 
day — One day's rest in seven 

Safety 69 

Accident reporting — Factories and workshops — Mining 
— Railroads and street cars — Navigation — Adminis- 
trative orders 

Health 83 

Occupational disease reporting — Causes of occupational 
disease — Health and morals ot child workers — Employ- 
ment of women and men — Prohibition of dangerous 
substances — Regulation of workshop conditions 

Self-Government in Industry .93 

Growth of trade unions — Strikes and lockouts — Picket- 
ing — Boycott and blacklists — "Open" and "closed" shop 
— Mediation or conciliation — Arbitration — Toward in- 
dustrial democracy 

Social Insurance 109 

Workmen's compensation for accidents — Health insur- 
ance — Unemployment insurance — invalidity insurance 
— Old age insurance 

Enforcement of Laws 125 

Labor bureaus — Factory inspectors — Industrial com- 
missions — Regulation through continuous investigations 
— Civil service and other problems — Co-operation by 
economic pressure — International labor regulation 



Foreword 

EVERYBODY talks about the labor problem. 
Strikes, wage controversies, shorter hour 
agitation, industrial accidents, unemploy- 
ment — furnish much of our newspaper reading. 
About each topic many substantial volumes have 
been written. No other question affects so vitally 
such a large number of people. It constantly 
threatens the continuance of the existing indus- 
trial order. It is now thoughtfully referred to as 
"the social question." 

Broadly conceived the labor movement is the 
progress of the masses of the people up from 
slavery, their escape through serfdom into the 
wage system, and their ever continuing struggle 
to improve their economic and social condition. 

Industrial progress, like the improvement of 
city streets, requires continual change. It is 
never finished. Many inconveniences are en- 
dured as we pass from one stage of development 
to the next. To avoid greater disorder, certain 
organized methods are employed and temporary 
rules of conduct are obeyed. 

In modern industry these regulations are by 
no means merely for the protection of wage- 
earners. Frequently they are just as essential for 
the safe-guarding of the conscientious employer 

[5] 



against undercutting by his less scrupulous com- 
petitors. In fact, the initiative — in establishing 
minimum standards below which no one shall 
be permitted to work — has often come from 
thoughtful employers desiring to improve con- 
ditions in their own workshops, but believing it 
essential that competitors be required to move 
forward at the same time. Moreover, modern 
conditions of living and labor make us increas- 
ingly inter-dependent and necessity requires that 
standards be determined with reference to the 
welfare of all the people — even of future gen- 
erations. For over all, as the final test of reason- 
ableness, is the public interest or the general 
welfare. 

In smoothing over the friction points which 
develop in industrial progress — in meeting tem- 
porarily the issues which constantly arise and 
reshape themselves as economic conditions and 
political sentiments change — two principal or- 
ganized methods have been employed. The 
method of collective bargaining through volun- 
tary trade organizations has been widely influ- 
ential throughout many generations. The meth- 
od of legal enactment has also resulted in more 
than a century of modern protective legislation. 

Each of these methods, from the general wel- 
fare point of view, has its advantages and disad- 
vantages. Voluntary group action without pub- 

[6] 



lie supervision avoids bureaucracy, but it does 
not always guard sufficiently the public interest. 
Legislative action is often inadequate and slow, 
but it does by its very nature invite public scru- 
tiny through the introduction of bills, with the 
holding of public hearings and open debate in 
public halls. In addition it does offer to every cit- 
izen opportunity to participate in bringing about 
proposed changes. Legislative results are usually 
more uniform and often they are more lasting. 
But it would be the greatest possible mistake to 
consider any phase of the labor problem as per- 
manently settled. Change is the way of progress 
as long as there is opportunity for improvement. 
Democracy — real democracy — means more 
than voting once a year for some one to govern 
us. It implies opportunity for self-improvement, 
leisure for training in good citizenship, an in- 
come sufficient for decent existence, reasonably 
safe and healthful and attractive working condi- 
tions, regularity of employment, relief from con- 
stant anxiety lest one become a subject of charity 
owing to industrial contingencies over which one 
has no control. Until these things are won, our 
democracy is admittedly one-sided. The labor 
legislation described in the following brief chap- 
ters marks the progress of a century in the devel- 
opment, by public methods, toward the recogni- 
tion of democratic standards for industry. 



[7] 



Employment 

Chapter Oxe 

A MAX willing to work and unable to 
find work," said Carlyle, "is, perhaps, 
the saddest sight that fortune's inequal- 
ity exhibits under the sun." Yet Secre- 
tary of Labor William B. Wilson estimated that 
there are at all times in the United States from 
one to three millions who are "employed or un- 
employed in accordance with industrial activity 
or industrial depression." Thus the federal Cen- 
sus of Manufactures for 1909 showed that in the 
slackest month of the year the number of those 
employed was 11.4 per cent, less than in the 
busiest month. 

Such irregularity of work causes loss to both 
employer and workman. The latter loses by 
the stoppage or reduction of wages, leading to 
suffering, discouragement, and often suicide or 
crime. "Morality and religion/' in the words 
of Horace Greeley, "are but words to him who 
fishes in the gutters for means of sustaining life, 
and crouches behind barrels in the street for 
shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night." 
The employer, on the other hand, loses through 
the interruption of output and sales, and also 
through the high expense attached to breaking in 
new help. Careful studies have found this ex- 

[9] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




OUT OF A JOB. 

During industrial depressions the homeless unemployed in 
large cities often go shelterless. 

pense to range from $50 to $100 for each new 
worker. 

In addition to fluctuations in the demand for 
labor due to the seasons or the recurrent waves 
of industrial prosperity and depression, other 
important causes of involuntary idleness are 
changes in the nature or location of industry, 
lack of a centralized market for labor, excessive 
"hiring and firing" or labor turn-over, and ir- 
regular or casual nature of the work. As these 
causes have always been more or less operative, 
unemployment has been always present, in good 
times as well as in bad. As stated by an official 

[10] 



EMPLOYMENT 



United States report, "Most unemployment has 
no connection whatever with any fault of the 
worker." It is a problem of industry. 

Distribution of Labor Supply 

At the same time that there have been thou- 
sands of men fruitlessly searching for work, 
there have been employers eagerly seeking men. 
Even during the war involuntary idleness and 
labor shortage existed side by side. To a con- 
siderable extent the solution of the unemploy- 
ment problem lies in quickly and effectively 




BITTER BREAD. 

The man who is driven to the bread line for a crust to eat 
all too often falls into the ranks of the unemployable. 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



• 

all 










,....:.-.■>.,..■■-""■ . - ? -- ■■*.■; :- ■■■■ 


: 



WAITING FOR A JOB. 

Men often wait in front of factories for a chance to work 

while elsewhere employers lack men. 



bringing together the jobless man and the man- 
less job. 

Many men find work through the recommen- 
dation of a relative or friend. Some simply 
tramp the streets in the haphazard search for a 
shingle or a piece of cardboard with the words 
"Help wanted" scrawled upon it. Others rise 
before daybreak and by the light of the corner 
lamp-post scan the columns of the "want ads" 
in the morning paper. Arrived at the address 
given they may find fifty or a hundred applicants 
waiting for the same position. A few workers, 

[12] 



EM PLOY MEN T 




"HELP WANTED." 

The symbol of inefficiency in the organization of the labor 

market. 



with special qualifications, insert their own ad- 
vertisements in the papers, in the hope that some 
employer will call for their services. Alto- 
gether millions of dollars are spent in these ways 
yearly, with very poor results in the distribution 
of labor. Newspaper advertising also lends it- 
self to fraudulent and even immoral uses by 
which many wage workers have been victimized. 

Regulation of Private Employment Agencies 

Somewhat more systematic means of connect- 
ing men with jobs are afforded by private em- 

[13] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

ployment offices. In nearly every large city 
there are philanthropic agencies which charge 
no fees for their services. Unfortunately these 
have become known as last resorts for inefficients, 
and do not attract high grade workmen or em- 
ployers. For their own trades some labor unions 
and employers' associations maintain "day 
rooms" where chances to work are distributed. 
Of those operated by employers' associations it 
is frequently declared that they are strike-break- 
ing or blacklisting agencies. Much more wide- 
spread than any of these types are the commer- 
cial employment bureaus, operated for private 
profit, which abound in all industrial centers, 
to the number throughout the country of about 
5,000. A few are specialized professional agen- 
cies for teachers, trained nurses, theatrical per- 
sons or the like, but in the main they deal with 
unskilled and domestic labor. 

While many commercial employment bureaus 
do good work, others are known to indulge in 
highly discreditable practices. They have often 
been found by official investigators, for instance, 
to misrepresent wages and conditions of work, 
send girl applicants to immoral resorts, split 
fees with foremen who discharge old employees 
in order to hire new ones through the agency, 
and even to send men and women to great dis- 
tances where there is no call for their services. 
In the effort to check these abuses, most states 

[14] 



EMPLOYMENT 




PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OFFICE. 

Public employment offices — when clean, efficient, and honest 

— bring good workmen and employers together. 



now provide that commercial employment agen- 
cies shall be bonded and licensed. Other regu- 
lations prohibit the location of employment bu- 
reaus in saloons or gambling places, and limit 
the size of the fee that may be charged. In a 
few .states advertisements for help must mention 
the existence of any strike or lockout. The form 
of register is sometimes specified, to assist in 
the collection of information on the condition 
of the labor market, but in practice the figures 
from private agencies have hardly proven worth 
the pains to gather them. 

[15] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

In the main, the regulations placed upon pri- 
vate employment bureaus have been upheld by 
the courts as a reasonable exercise of the police 
power in behalf of public welfare. Experience 
has shown, however, that they have not suc- 
ceeded in wiping out the abuses committed by 
private offices, and the result has been a wide- 
spread movement for the elimination of such 
offices altogether. A state law to this effect was 
initiated and adopted by the people of Wash- 
ington in 1914, but was declared unconstitu- 
tional by a majority decision of the United 
States Supreme Court on the ground that it 
interfered with a "useful business." 

Public Employment Offices 

The next step in the organization of the labor 
market is the establishment of public employ- 
ment offices. Beginning with five such bureaus 
opened by Ohio in 1890, the movement spread 
until in 1916 there were ninety-six, half of which 
had been created since 19 10. Most of these 
were under state auspices, nearly half of the 
states being represented; some were maintained 
by cities ; and a few, like the very efficient office 
at Cleveland, were under joint state-city man- 
agement. 

When the war came, drafting millions of our 
able-bodied men for military service, and ne- 
cessitating the shift of many millions more to 

[i6j 



EMPLOYMENT 



munitions, shipbuilding, and other war indus- 
tries, the country realized as never before the 
need for a nation-wide system of public employ- 
ment offices for the prompt and efficient dis- 
tribution of labor. 

Such a system had been in operation in Great 




(Harding, in Brooklyn Eagle.) 

COLD COMFORT. 

Statistics are interesting — in their place — but the unemployed 
want work. 

[17] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




PUBLIC WORK. 

Public work during slack times helps the unemployed and 
the community. 

Britain since 1909, and although the area of that 
country is only one-twenty-fifth of ours there 
were more than 400 offices. These were grouped 
in eight administrative districts, each with a 
divisional clearing house in direct communica- 
tion with the central office in London. In addi- 
tion, linked with the offices were over 1,000 local 
agencies which assisted in the administration of 
unemployment insurance, so that the system was 
closely in touch with workers in all parts of the 
kingdom. Before the war it was filling some 
j 7,000 vacancies weekly, mostly with skilled 

[18] 



EMPLOYMENT 



workmen, and this number increased due to the 
industrial demands of the conflict. 

In the United States, however, the war found 
us with our state and city employment offices 
poorly co-ordinated. While war manufacturers 
were clamoring for help, men were tramping 
the streets in search of work. Employers 




UNEMPLOYED CLEARING LAND. 

In the state of Washington work of this kind was success- 
fully carried on during one depression. 

[19] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



FCRCEHT OP UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG TRADE UNION MEMBERS 

(Due to Lack of Work or Materials) 

1907-1915 




THE ZIG-ZAG OF INDUSTRY. 

Most unemployment is not the workman s fault. He is laid 

off because of fluctuations in the demand for his labor. 

adopted the policy of "raiding" one another for 
desirable mechanics, and the commercial job- 
bureaus were reaping a harvest from the needs 
of the nation. Finally the situation grew so 
bad that a number of distribution offices run 
by the federal Immigration Service were taken 
over by a new governmental agency known as 
the United States Employment Service, and 
linked up under co-operative agreements with 
most of the state and municipal bureaus. We 

[20] 



EMPLOYMENT 



then had nearly 800 public employment offices 
under unified control. In about nine months 
they reported having referred 2,500,000 persons 
to positions. But they were operating merely 
as a war emergency organization, on a grant of 
$2,000,000 from the President's war emergency 
appropriation. Despite the demonstrated serv- 
ice of the system to the country during the crisis, 
and the obvious indications that it would be 
equally necessary during the period of demob- 
ilization and reconstruction, Congress adjourned 
in March, 1919, without setting aside the neces- 
sary money to carry on the work. As a result, 
the experienced and promising federal Employ- 
ment Service had to be practically abandoned 
except in so far as a few state and voluntary 
organizations took over parts of the work. One 
of the big tasks before the country is to restore 
it on an adequate and permanent basis. 

Public Work 

Even the best system of public employment 
offices cannot make work when there is no work. 
Hence practically ever since unemployment be- 
came a modern industrial problem there has 
been the repeated demand that government pro- 
vide means of earning a livelihood for those shut 
out from private industry. It is felt that thus 
giving the unemployed an opportunity under 
government direction to be self-supporting 

[ 21] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




— Courtesy Washington Times 

"A NIAGARA GOING TO WASTE 

Multiply this pathetic figure by millions for this nation, and 
you will have visualized the greatest waste and tragedy of our 
time. It is NOT a necessary waste, an inevitable tragedy. 
Human resolution, purpose, energy, human heart and brain 

can end it" 

would cost little more than caring for them by 
public or private charity, it would not debase 
them as charity would, and at the same time work 

[22] 



EMPLOYMENT 



of public importance would be accomplished. 
During the severe industrial depression of 1914- 
191 5 more than 100 American cities provided 
emergency work of this character, including 
sewer-building, street and road-making, quarry- 
ing, forestry, drainage, waterworks, building, 
painting, and even clerical duties. It is signifi- 
cant that during the depression of 1920-1922 a 
still larger number adopted this policy. 

Emergency public work for the unemployed 
has not always proven as efficient or as economi- 
cal as it should be. Yet opinion is growing that 
the flaws are due to poor administration rather 
than to any fault in the idea itself. 

Furthermore, it is becoming recognized that 
waiting until the emergency has overtaken the 
community before arranging for public work is 
wasteful and leads to unnecessary hardship. 
More stress is therefore being put on the plan 
of preparing in ordinary times for the slump 
which is almost certain to occur in the course 
of the industrial cycle. It has therefore been 
urged that each community or country lay 
out a carefully calculated plan of necessary pub- 
lic improvements, with sufficient appropriation 
to cover the cost, which could be pushed ahead 
without delay at the beginning of serious indus- 
trial depression. In this way public work, in- 
stead of dropping off along with private indus- 
try, as is now often the case, would expand and 

[23] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

tend to stabilize employment. It would, in fact, 
act as a sponge, absorbing the surplus of labor 
which private employers at certain times are un- 
able to utilize, and releasing it when business 
again picks up. Beginnings have been made in 
this direction. 

Regularization of Industry 

The heart of the problem of preventing unem- 
ployment has not yet been reached. Lack of 
work for those able and willing to work results 
from the maladjustments and fluctuations of in- 
dustry. No system of remedies is complete 
which does not include the regularization of in- 
dustry itself. Such regularization is demanded 
in the interests of both employer and employee 
— on one side to keep down overhead expenses 
and to secure the best returns from the business, 
on the other to prevent destitution and conse- 
quent demoralization. 

One method of regularization which has been 
successfully used is to send out samples and se- 
cure orders as far as a year ahead. In this way 
the market can be carefully gauged, gluts avoid- 
ed, and production held at a fairly uniform level. 
Some industries develop supplementary lines, 
such as tennis shoes and rubber tires in a rubber 
shoe factory. Others endeavor to avoid extreme 
styles and develop staple lines which are always 

[24] 



EMPLOYME N T 



in demand. Artificial drying has helped to sta- 
bilize brick manufacture. The growth of care- 
ful employment management, by which appli- 
cants for work are selected for the particular 
task they are to do, are transferred to other de- 
partments if possible instead of being laid off 
in slack periods, and are discharged only by 
some central authority after all efforts to use 
them in the plant have failed, has also proved 
helpful. The "Liverpool dock scheme," by 
which the longshoremen are pooled into one 
labor reserve instead of each hanging around the 
office of one particular ship company, can be ap- 
plied in principle to many other occupationSc 
To some extent, also, it is possible to dovetail 
occupations, so that building laborers, for in- 
stance, can in the winter find places in ice cutting 
or logging, and city factory employees can spend 
the summer months as farm or harvest hands. 

A great deal to stimulate this desirable regu- 
larization of industry can be accomplished by the 
proper application of the principle of insur- 
ance. When involuntary idleness entitles the 
worker to a definite money allowance to tide 
him and his family over the slack season, those 
in charge of industry will have an additional 
incentive to reduce industrial fluctuations to a 
minimum. 



[25] 



Wages 
Chapter two 

NO labor problem is more fundamental 
than the question of wages, for a man's 
whole way of life and that of his chil- 
dren after him is largely dependent on 
the amount he earns. 

Many persons believe that wage-earners re- 
ceived such increases during the war that low 
pay ceased to be a problem among them. Trades 
boomed by the war or covered by wage awards 
from government conciliation boards did fare 
comparatively well. Late in 191 8 a govern- 
ment board established eighty cents an hour as 
the minimum rate for skilled mechanics in the 
shipyards, while railroad employees some 
months before received increases varying from 
43 per cent, for those earning less than $50 a 
month to 1 per cent, for those paid $250. The 
demand for guns and ammunition enabled ma- 
chinists to earn big money, and during the two 
years 1917 and 191 8 six successive wage in- 
creases by the large steel companies amounted to 
an 85 per cent, increase. Unskilled laborers 
also had a considerable share in war prosperity, 
their wages rising from twenty cents an hour to 
thirty-five and forty. 

[27] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




(Donahey, in Cleveland Plain Dealer.) 

"WORK, NOT ALMS" 

The hands of labor seek not charity but an opportmiity to 

produce. 

But in many other lines not directly affected 
by the war wages rose little, if at all. Many 
organized workers in the building and printing 
trades received less than 20 per cent, increases 
in wages from 191 2 to 19 18. The weekly wage 
of clerks in factory offices in New York state 
increased only 26 per cent, between June, 1914, 
and October, 191 8, or from $19.18 to $24.11 
weekly. The average weekly wage of shop 
employees in a large group of New York fac- 
tories representing all forms of manufacture 
was only $22.22 in October, 191 8. 

[28] 



WAGES 



Meanwhile, the high cost of living was af- 
fecting all employees alike. The price of food, 
clothing and house furnishings, to say nothing 
of rent, rose to record-breaking heights. The 
National Industrial Conference Board, a fed- 
eration of employers' associations, estimated 
conservatively that the cost of living had gone 
up 70 per cent, in about four years. The United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 
at the end of 191 8 wholesale prices of all com- 
modities combined were 106 per cent, higher 
than in 1913. In December, 1917, the Phila- 
delphia Bureau of Municipal Research esti- 
mated that $1,200 a year or $23 a week was 
necessary to provide a "living wage" for a fam- 
ily of man, wife, and three children. Prices 
continued to rise until the highest point was 
reached in June, 1920, when the cost of living 
was 1 16.5 per cent higher than in 1913. Union 
wage rates for 1920 were only 89 per cent higher 
than in 1913. 

Up to the outbreak of the world war, in 19 14, 
students of the subject had decided that for the 
last quarter century wages, as measured by what 
they would buy, had been slowly but surely 
falling. The decline amounted to about 10 or 
15 per cent, over the whole period and was 
more rapid from 1900 to 19 14 than during the 
previous decade. We are forced to conclude 
that all the wage increases of the war hardly 

[29] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

changed the situation, as wages in most cases 
little more than kept pace with the cost of liv- 
ing, and only very rarely exceeded it. 

Payment of Wages 

In the United States labor laws affecting 
wages have, until the last few years, not set the 
amount of the wage directly, but have influ- 
enced its real value by indirect methods. This 
class of laws deals with such matters as the 
frequency and form of wage payments, fines 
and deductions from wages, and protection to 
the worker if his employer fails to pay the wage 
due. The unfair practices which such laws are 
intended to prevent involve sums small in them- 
selves, perhaps, but of no little importance to 
the wage-earner, and unjust treatment well cal- 
culated to leave him with a permanent griev- 
ance against society. Every organization which 
has taken up the collection of such claims finds 
its time filled with the work. 

To the workman with little or nothing to 
depend on but his wages, the frequency with 
which he is paid is a matter of great concern. 
The longer he must wait for his pay, the more 
likely will he be to run up a bill at the store 
or to fall into the loan shark's clutches, and 
the higher will his cost of living become and 
the lower the real value of his wages. On the 

[30] 



WAGES 



other hand, the employer profits by fewer pay- 
days, as less book-keeping and less ready cash 
are needed. 

Consequently all over the world industrial 
states have stepped in to protect the worker by 
requiring a regular pay-day, sometimes month- 
ly, sometimes fortnightly or weekly. About 




NOT "CHEAP LABOR." 

This woman machinist did a man 's-sized job and received 
a union mans wage. 

[31] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




Pheidippides * did not 
die of heart failure! 

He was poisoned 

poisoned by fatigue. 

( Pheidippides was the messenger 
who dropped dead after running 26-% 
miles to announce in Athens the victory 
of the Greeks over the Persians at the 
battle of Marathon, 490 B.C.) 

[32] 



WAGES 



two-thirds of our American states have laws 
of this kind, generally providing for wage pay- 
ments every two weeks. Years ago some courts 
refused to uphold these laws, stating that they 
were an infringement on the "liberty" of the 
workman, but later decisions have recognized 
the needs of the worker and his inability to se- 
cure prompt payment from a large corporation, 
unless aided by legislation. Several states also 
require that an employee shall be paid during 
working hours, which saves his time. Many 
states provide that an employee must be paid as 
soon as he is discharged and that he can collect 
interest charges for any delay. But if a man 
quits, the law generally allows his wages to be 
held until the next regular pay-day. 

Carlyle protested against modern civilization 
because its only bond of union between man 
and man was cash. Yet from another point 
of view it is only when wages are paid in cash 
and the wage-earner is free to buy what he 
wants and wherever he wants that he has any 
real freedom. The worker who must trade at 
the company store is liable to pay excessive 
prices for inferior goods. He may find false 
items on his bill, against which he dare not 
protest for fear of losing his job, or on the 
other hand he may be bound to his job by a 
debt he is never quite able to discharge. Pay- 
ment in "scrip" or "store orders" ties him to the 

[33] 




Under a 
W \ !| continuous strain 
your muscular strength 
will eventually 
break 



WAGES 



company store or lowers his wages by obliging 
him to accept a discount in changing from scrip 
to legal money. 

Half-a-dozen states have enacted legislation 
which attempts to forbid the whole system of 
"company stores" and scrip payments. Others 
try to regulate the system by forbidding exces- 
sive prices or higher charges to employees than 
to outsiders. In a "company town," however, 
where the employing corporation is the sole 
proprietor, this form of regulation is not very 
effective. The largest group of laws, found in 
about a dozen states, attempts to prevent any 
coercion of the employee to accept company 
scrip or to trade in company stores. 

Fines for tardiness or other breaches of shop 
discipline, for bad work or spoilt material, de- 
ductions for drinking-water, for needles or the 
use of machines may, in the hands of an un- 
scrupulous employer, amount to a lowering of 
wages, and be arbitrary and unreasonable in the 
highest degree. A fertile ground for labor dis- 
putes is also found in such fines and deduc- 
tions. About ten states attempt to regulate the 
practice in various ways. Massachusetts has 
a unique law forbidding the fining of weavers 
except for imperfect work. Massachusetts and 
California limit fines for tardiness to the amount 
of wages which would have been earned dur- 
ing the time lost. In Michigan no fines what- 

[35] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

ever may be imposed, and Louisiana forbids 
them except for wilful damage to the employ- 
er's property or materials. The remaining 
states allow fines to be deducted only accord- 
ing to a fixed procedure and with the full con- 
sent of the workers. But, like all laws which 
try to bring in the "consent of the workers," the 
value of these provisions is doubtful. Unless 
he is in an unusually well protected position, 
the worker must consent if he wants to hold his 
job. 

Another kind of law dealing with wage pay- 
ments is the so-called "mechanic's lien." This 
is one of the oldest forms of American labor 
legislation, the first such law having been passed 
in New York in 1830. It was based on the 
still older practice of giving a contractor a 
claim for his payment in the house he had built 
and the land it stood on. To protect the worker, 
in turn, from the irresponsible contractor- with 
no property of his own to satisfy wage claims, 
he is given the right to bring suit for his wages 
against the value of the building or land on 
which he was employed. Such a claim may be 
made in every state in the union and is generally 
given first preference above all other claims, 
even those of the contractor. Mechanics' liens 
extend, in various states, to labor performed on 
public works, railroads, in mines, on the land, 
and in lumbering, shipbuilding, sawmilling and 
other occupations. 

[36] 



WAGES 



Minimum Wage Laws 

Recently, England, Australia, several Cana- 
dian provinces, and about a dozen American 
states have developed a wholly different type of 
wage legislation, known as minimum wage laws, 
which aim to regulate the amount of the wage 
directly by fixing the smallest sum which may 
legally be paid the worker. 

Australia is the birthplace of minimum wage 
legislation. Although it was a new and pros- 
perous country, it was discovered during the 
'eighties that a number of trades were paying 
starvation wages and employing their workers 
under miserable conditions. Much public feel- 
ing against these methods developed and after 
several years' agitation the province of Victoria 
in 1896 passed the first minimum wage law. 
This applied only to half-a-dozen trades in 
which wages were especially low, but in 1900 
it was extended so that it might cover any oc- 
cupation. Practically all the workers of Vic- 
toria except farm laborers now have their wages 
regulated by minimum wage awards, and three 
others of the five Australian provinces have 
passed similar legislation. 

In 1909 Great Britain passed a minimum 
wage law known as the "trade boards act" mod- 
elled on the Victorian statute, and applying to 
occupations paying "exceptionally low" wages, 
under which minimum wages had been fixed 

[37] 




fter reaching 

their stride, six 

experienced 









121 



151 



130 



typesetters 
found tliat 

their hourly output 

diminished 

the longer 
they worked 

without 
a rest 
eriod. 



TOTAL LINES OF TYPE 

SET PER HOUR BY 

SIX EXPERIENCED TYPESETTERS 

FATIGUE LOWERS OUTPUT. 

The output of these six typesetters was lowest just before 
the lunch hour and in the late afternoon. 



125 



AT LUNCH 

AND 

AT REST 



142 




WAGES 



for about 400,000 wage-earners in eight dif- 
ferent lines of work up to the outbreak of the 
world war. The law was amended in 191 8 so 
that it could be extended more quickly and 
to a large number of occupations. At the begin- 
ning of 1922 about three score of trades had been 
included. In 1917 a bill guaranteeing the price 
of wheat to British farmers included provisions 
for a minimum wage for farm laborers. Nor- 
way and France have also passed minimum wage 
laws within the last several years, applying to 
the sweated workers in the garment trades. 

Except in so far as a high proportion of 
workers in many low-paid trades are women, 
foreign laws apply to both sexes alike. But in the 
United States minimum wage legislation covers 
cnly women and children. This is in line with 
American precedent in other forms of protec- 
tive labor legislation, such as safety and health, 
and notably hour restrictions. Women and 
children are considered the most helpless class 
of workers. They are least able to protect 
themselves. The courts are more favorable to 
protective legislation applied to women and chil- 
dren than to men, and the labor unions support 
it while they prefer to have men gain their own 
ends through organization. 

A dozen or more states, Porto Rico and the 
District of Columbia, had provided, up to July, 
1922, for the fixing of legal minimum wages for 

[39] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

women and children. Similar measures are in 
force in several Canadian provinces. 

The statutes are of two kinds, known as "flat 
rate" and "wage board" laws. In the former, 
found in only a few states, the minimum rate 
which may be paid the woman worker is spe- 
cified in the law. Thus Arizona sets $10 a week 
as the minimum for the principal industrial oc- 
cupations. The recent rapid rise in the cost of 
living brought out the weakness of the flat rate 
law, for it could not be quickly adjusted to price 
changes. Nor does it take account of differ- 
ences due to locality or to the varying require- 
ments of different occupations. 

Because of its greater flexibility, the wage 
board type of law found in all the other states 
and abroad appears to be preferable, although 
it sets up a much more elaborate machinery. A 
bureau or commission is created, to oversee the 
administration of the law. The commission 
then forms wage boards in one occupation after 
another, each board representing the three par- 
ties at interest, employers, employees, and the 
public. Minimum wages are fixed by these 
boards for the various occupations, after inves- 
tigation and conference. Most laws require that 
such a minimum rate shall be "sufficient to cover 
the necessary cost of proper living," that is to 
say, a "living wage." 

Two methods are used to secure the payment 

[40] 



WAGES 



THE THE 

12 HOUR DAY 8 HOUR DAY 

~5W 




i^SVF 4:30 AA 





(Liggr 830RM|| ^ 




TWELVE HOURS OR EIGHT HOURS ? 

These two men may live next door to each other in almost 

any city. Which is the better citizen? 

[+1] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

of the wage fixed. The employer's wage records 
are inspected. Women who are paid less than 
the minimum may sue for the unpaid wage bal- 
ance. Though in other forms of labor legisla- 
tion it has proved useless to expect workers 
themselves to risk their jobs by complaining, in 
minimum wage cases, where fairly large wage 
balances quickly accumulate, this method has 
proved successful. Employers who do not pay 
the minimum may be fined, except in Massa- 
chusetts, where their names may merely be pub- 
lished. 

The first American minimum wage law was 
passed by Massachusetts in 191 2, and eight states 
followed suit in 191 3. One reason why the 
movement then halted for a time was probably 
because from 1914 to 1917 the courts were de- 
bating the constitutionality of the legislation. 
A test case covering the Oregon law was decided 
favorably in the latter year by the United States 
Supreme Court. The court was, in fact, evenly 
divided on the subject, so that a previous favor- 
able decision by the state supreme court of Ore- 
gon remained in force. The Oregon court 
treated the law as closely akin to hour legisla- 
tion, being for the same reasons "within the po- 
lice power of the state and . . . tending to 
guard the public morals and the public health." 
Since the Oregon case, the supreme courts of 
other states have upheld the laws within their 

[42] 



WAGES 



own jurisdictions. The right of the government 
to fix minimum wages by law for at least women 
and minors may accordingly be said to be es- 
tablished in the United States. 

Many dire and often-times contradictory pre- 
dictions of the effects of minimum wage laws 
are made whenever they are proposed. It is 
claimed on one hand that it is not possible to 
increase wages by law. On the other hand, it 
is alleged that "the minimum will become the 
maximum" and that higher-paid workers will 
be reduced when lower-paid ones are raised, that 
low-paid workers will be thrown out of employ- 
ment altogether if their wages must be increased, 
that employers will become bankrupt or move 
out of the state if forced to pay more wages, and 
that the efficiency of the workers will suffer if 
their wages are guaranteed. American experi- 
ence of the effect of minimum wage awards is 
still scanty, but in those states where awards 
have been longest in force, as well as in other 
countries, these fears do not seem to have been 
realized. Enforcement is not perfect, but a con- 
siderable rise in wages is noted. The average 
weekly wage of women in Oregon stores was 8.6 
per cent, higher in spite of a business depression 
which caused an 8 per cent, falling off in sales. 

The charge that the wages of higher-paid 
workers are reduced is not borne out anywhere, 
while after the first readjustment no lasting in- 

[43] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

crease of unemployment is noticeable. In Aus- 
tralia, where minimum wages are generally ap- 
plied, employers make a good many charges of 
decreased efficiency, but in England and the 
United States the opposite result is reported. As 
for the financial effect on employers, wages are 
not raised so greatly that the extra cost 
of the product is a large item. In Oregon stores 
the increased cost of labor was only three mills 
on each dollar of sales. 

This last fact helps us define the exact effect 
of minimum wage laws. They do not, after all, 
transform society. The sums fixed as living 
wages for women in this country vary from $8 
or $9 weekly a few years ago to $15.60 in the 
District of Columbia and $16 in California 
under war-time high prices. As pictured by 
one writer the minimum wage guarantees "not 
enough to make life a rich and welcome ex- 
perience, but just enough to secure existence 
amid drudgery in grey boarding-houses and 
cheap restaurants." But the standards set rep- 
resent some gain to the lowest-paid workers and 
do, to that extent, relieve the situation for the 
poorest, hardest-pressed section of the most help- 
less part of the wage-earners. 



[44] 



Hours 

CHAPTER THREE 

IF there is one lesson the great war pounded 
home to the captains of industry, it is that 
too long hours do not pay. In the early days 
of the struggle, when France and England 
leaped, only half prepared, to the defense of their 
liberties, they were forced to signal "full speed 
ahead" to their munitions producers. But as 
the spurt settled down into the long steady grind 
of a four-year contest, it was noticed that pro- 
duction of essential war material was falling off. 
Not only was the output lessened, but its quality 
was lowered. There was waste of material and 
power through broken time. The workers were 
growing dispirited and lacked "pep." 

The British government set a commission of 
experts to investigate, and they very soon found 
out the cause of the trouble — overwork. All 
toil and no play was making Jack and Jill (for 
there were hundreds of thousands of women 
concerned) into dull and inefficient producers. 
The commission recommended shorter hours, 
intervals for rest, one full day off* a week. When 
these were tried, the output of shells and guns 
went up again. 

It was the old story, often told, seldom learned, 
repeating itself. A tired man is a poisoned man, 

[45] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

poisoned by the waste products of his own ac- 
tivity. He cannot do good or profitable work 
until the bodily poisons produced by toil have 
been removed by suitable intervals of rest. 

Moreover, for citizenship as well as for pro- 
duction, the free worker in a democracy needs 
suitable leisure for the enrichment of his family 
life and intelligent attention to current questions. 
Had all the peoples of the civilized world been 
conducting their national affairs on a well-in- 
formed democratic basis, the war which cost 
over 7,000,000 human lives would never have 
occurred. 

• For America's women in industry, who are 
among the mothers of the coming generation, 
there is special need for protection against long 
hours. A strong and vigorous race demands 
mothers whose energies are not sapped by a 
work-day dragged out to unhealthful extremes, 
or by industrial toil during the night hours that 
should be given to rest and sleep. And the 
children, too, if they are to carry on the work 
of democracy and civilization, must be saved in 
their tender years from toil too exhausting for 
their forming minds and bodies. 

First Modern Factory Law 

The first modern factory law dealt with the 
hours of children in British cotton mills. Be- 
ginning about 1760 people ceased to spin and 

[46] 



HOURS 



weave entirely by hand, but took up the manu- 
facture of cloth by power-driven machinery in 
large factories. In this transformation, which 
lies at the foundation of all our modern indus- 
try, many pauper children were apprenticed to 
the owners of the cotton factories. Philanthro- 
pists soon noticed that these children were miser- 




R1VETER AT WORK. 

The great speed demanded by some occupations is a strain 
that can be counteracted by short hours. 

[47] 




CYCLE of the 
WORKING DAY 

Eight hours for work! 

Eight hours for sleep ! 

Eight hours for home 

and citizenship! 



HOURS 



ably treated, overworked, and given no chance 
for education. An act, passed by the English 
Parliament in 1802, among other provisions, 
limited their hours to twelve a day. Inadequate 
as this standard now seems, it marks the be- 
ginning of the long line of special laws limit- 
ing the hours during which young workers may 
be employed. 

The first such law in the United States was 
passed by Massachusetts in 1842, and established 
a ten-hour day for all children under twelve 
working in factories. Along with forbidding all 
work for wages by children under a certain age, 
provisions restricting the hours of the youngest 
workers have been developed, until to-day there 
is general agreement that legislation, at the very 
least, besides keeping children under fourteen 
out of the factory and in the school-room, should 
prevent night work by all boys and girls under 
sixteen and limit their working hours to eight. 
Beginning with Illinois in 1903, this standard 
has been reached by about half the states, in- 
cluding the majority of those of industrial im- 
portance. Of the remaining states, about half 
have nine-hour laws for children and the rest 
allow a work-day of ten hours or more. In 
some of the southern cotton-mill states, however,, 
it is legal for children to work at night and 
eleven hours a day, and such poor laws as exist 
are reported not to be well enforced. 

[49] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

In an effort to bring the more backward states 
up to better standards, two federal child labor 
laws have been passed. In the earlier one, which 
became law in 1916, Congress forbade the trans- 
portation in interstate commerce, that is to say, 
from state to state, of goods on which children 




(Copyright, Underwood and Underwood.) 

MARBLE POLISHER. 

The monotony of repeating one process over and over again, 
is wearing on the workman s nerves, 

[50] 



HOURS 




(Copyright, Underwood and Underwood.) 

STOKING. 

Men who are doing hard physical labor often have to work 
in short shifts. Stokers work for four hours. 

between fourteen and sixteen had worked at 
night or more than eight hours a day. The 
United States Supreme Court set aside the law, 
however, declaring that such regulation was not 
within the power of Congress. Congress then 
attacked the evil in another way in the war rev- 
enue bill of 1 9 19. A tax of jx> per cent, of the 
net profits for the year was imposed on all estab- 
lishments in which any child between fourteen 
and sixteen had worked at night or more than 
eight hours a day. The measure went into effect 
in April, 1919, but was declared unconstitutional 
in May, 1922. 

[51] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Women's Hour Legislation 

Next to children, women receive more pro- 
tection from hour laws than any other class of 
workers. Though the constitutionality of lim- 
itations on women's working hours is now es- 
tablished, years of struggle with the courts was 
necessary before this was certain. In 1895 the 
Illinois Supreme Court set aside an eight-hour 
law for women workers on the ground that it 
was an infringement on the "liberty" of a woman 
to work as long as she saw fit. For some years 
afterwards decisions by state courts varied. Then 
in 1908 came the test case in which the Oregon 
women's ten-hour law came before the Supreme 
Court of the United States. Louis D. Brandeis, 
who later became a member of the court, and 
Miss Josephine Goldmark, prepared a famous 
brief in defense of the law. This brief em- 
phasized not so much legal technicalities as the 
harmful effects of excessive hours on the health 
of women. The court upheld the law as a 
health measure. "As healthy mothers are es- 
sential to vigorous offspring," the judges said, 
"the physical well-being of women becomes an 
object of public interest and care in order to 
preserve the strength and vigor of the race." 
Shortly afterwards the Illinois court sustained 
a new law for a ten-hour day. In 1915 the 
United States Supreme Court took a further 

[52] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

progressive step in upholding the California 
eight-hour law for women. 

All but five states had laws limiting the daily 
or weekly hours of women's w T ork at the begin- 
ning of 1922. The ten-hour day was still the 
most frequent, but the eight-hour day was in 
force in nine western states, the District of Co- 
lumbia and Porto Rico, and a nine-hour day in 
more than a dozen of the remaining states, in- 
cluding the important industrial areas of New 
York, Ohio, and Missouri. A few states have 
daily limits of from ten and a quarter to twelve 
hours. Most states fixed weekly as well as daily 
limits, which varied from forty-eight to sixty 
hours. 

Night Work 

The United States is among the most back- 
ward of modern industrial countries in check- 
ing night work by women. In 1906 an inter- 
national conference on women's night work was 
called at Berne, Switzerland. Fourteen leading 
European countries were represented. A mass 
of evidence on the physical and moral dan- 
gers of industrial night work for women, gath- 
ered in five years' investigation by the Inter- 
national Association for Labor Legislation, was 
put before the conference. The various coun- 
tries signed an international treaty by which 
they agreed, as soon as possible, to pass legisla- 

[54] 



HOURS 





to 

CO u 

CD «3 

<D U 
O r ^ 

1 8 JS 

O p .3 

o -d 

© o 

^ fe 
p-t 










•5 

o 

s 

© 

to 



3 



•S 
"3 

o 



-ex, 

E 

H 
to 

.5 

Hi 






-si 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



tion forbidding night work by women. By 191 2 
they had practically all done so. 

About a dozen American states have forbid- 
den night work for women in certain occupa- 
tions, but only a few have extended the prohibi- 
tion to any large group of employments. In 
1907 the highest state court of New York set 
aside a law of this kind, while in 1913, making 
special mention of the facts presented to it in a 
Brandeis-Goldmark brief, it unanimously re- 
versed itself and upheld a similar law. Four 
or five additional states attempt to discourage 
night work by limiting it to a shorter period 
than day work. 



Regulation of Mens Hours 

Laws restricting men's hours in general pri- 
vate employment are much less common — in fact 
in 1922 only a few American states had such 
legislation. Mississippi and Oregon both had 
ten-hour laws covering all factory employment. 

One reason for American hesitancy to legis- 
late on this subject has been the doubtful attitude 
of the courts. After the famous Lochner case 
in 1905, when the highest court of the land set 
aside a statute giving a ten-hour day to New 
York bakers, many people believed that general 
laws affecting the hours of men were not con- 
stitutional in America. But in 1917, with many 

[56] 



HOURS 



more scientific facts available as to the bad ef- 
fects of long hours, the United States Supreme 
Court upheld the Oregon ten-hour law. 

In spite of existing hesitancy, there are a good 
many hour laws for men covering lines of work 
which for one reason or other are supposed to be 
especially dangerous, and legislation on which 
can therefore run the gauntlet of the courts. 
With railroad employees, excessive hours mean 
not only danger to their own health and safety, 
but also a greater risk of accidents which may 
endanger the lives and property of passengers. 
Almost every state in the union, as well as the 
United States for interstate employees, has 
placed hour restrictions on two classes of rail- 
road workers — firemen, engineers, conductors 
and others engaged in the actual handling of 
trains, and those who direct train movements, 
such as telegraphers and train dispatchers. For 
those handling trains, sixteen hours, to be fol- 
lowed by at least eight or ten hours of rest, is 
generally set as the limit of a day's work. Teleg- 
raphers may be restricted to eight hours under 
a three-shift system if employment iscontinuous, 
or at small stations to twelve or thirteen hours 
followed by a rest period of eight or ten hours. 
But the necessary permission to work overtime 
in "emergencies" leaves a loophole through 
which these laws may be evaded, and their en- 
forcement, though improving, leaves something 
to be desired. 

[57] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




"WHY DIDN'T HE SHUT THE MOTOR OFF?" 

Many serious accidents are the result of trying to adjust 
or reach across a running machine. 

About a dozen states have scattering laws af- 
fecting men's hours in other special lines of 
work. Laundries, electric plants, firing of sta- 
tionary boilers, cement mills, saw mills, brick- 
yards, textile mills, and drug and grocery stores, 
have all appeared to some legislators to demand 
special protection against the dangers of over- 
work. 

Eight-Hour Day 

The constitutionality of statutes which limit 
men's hours to eight a day is still uncertain. An 
Alaska court has set aside a measure of this kind, 
but the United States Supreme Court has not 
passed on a test case. 

[58] 



HOURS 



Public employees, indeed, have frequently 
secured the eight-hour day by legislative 
action. A number of states and territories 
have an eight-hour day for all employees on 
public works whether carried on directly by 
state or city or undertaken by contractors. In 
other states the laws are more comprehensive, 
applying to all employees and not merely those 
on public works. The federal government has 
an eight-hour law covering all its own employees 
and many, but not all, workers on contracts for 
government supplies. Even during the war 
emergency the eight-hour standard was in large 
part maintained, though in certain cases over- 
time at higher rates was allowed. Certain groups 
of post office employees have also secured spe- 
cial eight-hour legislation, and firemen in sev- 
eral cities have obtained two-platoon or twelve- 
hour shift legislation, and are agitating a three- 
platoon system. 

The latest hour law for railroad employees is 
the Adamson law. Rushed through Congress 
in 1916 to avert a nation-wide railroad strike, 
this act established eight hours as the standard 
for pay. There was much discussion as to 
whether the law would really reduce hours or 
whether it was merely a device to raise wages. 
Official investigation of the operation of the 
law showed both results. Some trainmen, espe- 

[59] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




SAFETY IN THE FOUNDRY. 

Protective clothing, goggles, and safety ladles are necessary 
safeguards for foundry workers. 

cially in railroad yards, had their hours short- 
ened; many received higher wages. 

The eight-hour day in mines, where dangers to 
health and safety are many, has been secured 
by law in most of the important mining states. 
A six-hour day is now the goal of organized 
miners both in England and America. One of 

[60] 



HOURS 



the most scientific hour laws covers workers in 
compressed air in New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania. Modern tunnel and skyscraper 
construction requires a great deal of work of this 
kind. The number of hours' work allowed daily 
varies according to the amount of pressure, as 
does the length of the interval dividing the day's 
work into two equal parts. Starting with an 
eight-hour day followed by a half-hour rest if 
the air pressure is twenty-one pounds above nor- 
mal, only an hour and a half of work is allowed 
when working under pressure of forty-five to 
fifty pounds, and the rest interval must be five 
hours. 

Another reason besides the doubtful attitude 
of the courts why the progress of hour laws for 
men has halted in America is that organized 
labor has not been altogether favorable. Fifty 
years ago, when British workmen were demand- 
ing: 

"Eight hours for work, eight hours for play, 
Eight hours for sleep and eight bob a day," 

the National Labor Union, a predecessor of the 
American Federation of Labor, under the lead- 
ership of Ira Steward started a nation-wide 
movement for a universal eight-hour day by law. 
But the laws then secured for private employ- 
ments were not enforceable, and during the past 
generation trade unionists have supported hour 

[61] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




BOX YOUR BELTS. 

Belting is dangerous unless well shielded. Many men have 
been killed or maimed for lack of safeguards. 



reductions through collective bargaining rather 
than through legislation. Very recently, how- 
ever, there are signs that this point of view 
is changing. The Adamson law had the sup- 
port of the railroad brotherhoods. 

Meanwhile, the eight-hour day, through trade 
agreements, arbitration awards, and voluntary 
concessions by employers, has made great ad- 
vances during the last few years. In 1919, the 
Census of Manufactures found that 48.6 per cent 
of the manufacturing establishments were oper- 

[62] 



HOURS 



ating on a forty-eight hour or less, weekly basis. 
But 3 per cent were operating over sixty hours. 
Many people were toiling twelve hours a day, 
seven days a week, in the so-called continuous 
industries such as steel plants, paper mills, 
power stations, and glass and chemical works. 
Men in these establishments generally change 
from day to night shift weekly or fortnightly, 
working twenty-four hours without rest at that 
time. The only practicable alternative to the 
twelve-hour day in these continuous industries 
is the eight-hour system, with three shifts. So 
glaring are the evils of the twelve-hour day that 
an international convention in London in June, 
191 2, favored international action to secure 
eight-hour shifts in continuous industries. Such 
a law has been proposed for Massachusetts 
paper-mills, but no measure of the kind is yet 
in force in the United States. 

After America entered the war the eight-hour 
movement was greatly aided by the favorable 
attitude of the government. "The eight-hour day 
is an established policy of the country," said 
President Wilson's personal mediation commis- 
sion. The National War Labor Board, indus- 
try's supreme court for the settlement of labor 
disputes during the war, was equally favorable 
to the principle. Important industries for which 
an eight-hour day was established by award of 
a government board included many machine 

[63] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




RUNNING A LATHE. 

The recent entrance of women into machine shops calls 
for an increase in safety measures. 

shops and munition plants, packing-houses, ship- 
yards, the lumber industry of the northwest, and 
news print paper mills. Several large steel mills 
set up the eight-hour day voluntarily in the 
early months of 191 8. In the beginning of 1919 
an epidemic of eight-hour day strikes swept 
through eastern textile mills. The strikers in 

[64] 



HOURS 



most cases won the reduction in hours, but some- 
times had to accept a reduction in pay. 

Many of the government wage awards, how- 
ever, set up not the "straight," but the "basic" 
eight-hour day, overtime beyond eight hours 
at additional pay being freely allowed. When 
the war emergency was over, it was planned to 
abolish the overtime. The basic eight-hour day 
is of course a compromise of the eight-hour prin- 
ciple, and it frequently happens that the work- 
ers remain content with overtime pay and no 
real reduction in hours takes place. Carpenters 
on government construction work in Brooklyn 
eyen struck for a return of overtime when it was 
cut down shortly after the armistice, saying that 
they needed the extra money to meet Liberty 
Bond payments. 

A counter-current, which aims at a real de- 
crease in hours, is the trade-union and radical 
movement for a forty-four-hour week. As the 
eight-hour day becomes more common, this 
movement to secure a Saturday half-holiday is 
gaining impetus. It was the crucial issue in a 
New York strike won in January, 1919, by a 
large union in the men's clothing industry, the 
Amalgamated Clothing Workers. 

The first official International Labor Confer- 
ence under the League of Nations, meeting in 
Washington in 1919, adopted a convention for 
the legal eight-hour day. By March, 1922, 

[65] • 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



L 






il 






I" 




¥■ 













IN A MUNITIONS PLANT. 

Powerful punch presses that cut through a metal plate at 
the touch of a lever. No place to be careless. 

fully a score of countries had enacted eight-hour 
legislation. 

One Day's Rest in Seven 

Even with moderate daily hours, the worker 
cannot maintain his health and efficiency year 
after year without a weekly day of complete rest. 
The British Health of Munition Workers Com- 
mittee, striving to build up the output of muni- 
tions of war, recommended the abolition of all 
Sunday work. 

Yet under modern conditions, much work 
must continue every day in the week. Besides 

'[661 



HOURS 



the continuous industries, in which for techni- 
cal reasons the plants must operate constantly, 
street cars cannot stop one day a week, milk 
must be delivered, power plants must continue 
to operate. In Minnesota in 1909, 14 per cent, 
of all men workers were reported employed 
seven days a week, while in New York the fol- 
lowing year over 20 per cent, of 179,000 trade 
unionists in a number of specified industries 
were engaged in seven-day labor. The old-time 
Sunday laws, designed mainly to protect the 
Sabbath as a holy day, fail to meet these new 
conditions. 

For this reason, a new type of law has been 
developed, providing one day of rest in seven 
for workers, but not specifying the day on which 
it must be taken. Necessary employees can, 
under such laws, remain at work on Sunday and 
take their rest-day during some other part of 
the week. In some cases where a plant must 
operate in full force every day, the employer 
may have to hire one-sixth more men, so as to 
let one-seventh of the total force off each day 
of the week. The expense of this plan will tend 
to cut down unnecessary Sunday work, and the 
Sabbath will be better protected than it is now. 
Effective laws of this kind, applying to workers 
in limited occupations, are in force in half a 
dozen states. Investigations indicate that with- 
out undue hardship to industry thousands of 

[67] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AN D LABOR LEGISLATION 

workers formerly employed seven days a week 
have thus been given a rest-day. The courts 
have universally been favorable to the old-time 
Sunday laws, and the highest court of New York 
state took a similar position on the new type of 
law. 



[68] 



Safety 
Chapter Four 

IF work is to be a means of life and not of 
death, the places where it is carried on must 
be made safe. In the early days when manu- 
facture was literally "making by hand," and 
was carried on by each craftsman in his own 
home or small shop, this was a simple matter. 
To-day, when hundreds or thousands of opera- 
tives toil under one roof amid high-power and 
rapidly moving machinery, with shafting and 
belting whirring overhead, with the tremendous 
forces of steam and electricity straining at their 
leash, and under conditions over which final con- 
trol rests with the employer, industrial safety has 
become a very much more complex and impor- 
tant matter. 

Accident Reporting 

Not until Massachusetts took the lead in 1886 
did any American state have on its statute books 
a law requiring industrial accidents to be re- 
ported. Slowly these laws spread to other states, 
but their results were not satisfying. Employers 
appeared reluctant to give out such information, 
and the state officials very rarely took the trou- 
ble to prosecute. Speaking at one time of eight 

[69] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 





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'* 




;■;.-■■■;' ■' ;f;:L;r''>>'i. : : r" s ;:,., ^^*f^;%l;p> . . ^';^. 





THESE GEARS ARE MUZZLED. 

T/z£ /££//* ow this drilling machine will catch no ones 
limbs or clothing. 



states which had reporting laws, a federal in- 
vestigator said that "In none of them is there 
any pretense that anything like complete re- 
turns of accidents are obtained." 

Decided improvement was wrought in this sit- 
uation by the adoption of workmen's compensa- 
tion for industrial accidents. When it was to 
somebody's interest — in this case the injured 
workman's — to report the accident to the au- 
thorities, the number of recorded casualties ap- 
proached much more nearly to the number 

[70] 



SAFETY 



which actually occurred. In New York, for 
instance, where the reporting and checking up 
system was among the best in the country, the 
number of accidents listed by the labor depart- 
ment rose from 94,000 the year before work- 
men's compensation was in force to 225,000 the 
year after. 

Even yet the number of industrial injuries oc- 
curring throughout the country is not known 
precisely. An estimate issued by the United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics places the num- 
ber of fatal accidents at 25,000 annually, and 
injuries resulting in disability of more than four 
weeks at 700,000. Since about three-quarters 
of all accidents requiring medical attendance 
result in recovery within two weeks, the total 
number of injuries in American industry must 
be close to 3,000,000 annually. During the in- 
tense activity of the war period this figure was 
probably increased. 

Mining, especially metal mining, is the most 
hazardous occupation, resulting in the largest 
number of deaths in proportion to numbers em- 
ployed. Railroading, electrical work, and quar- 
rying are high on the list. In agriculture, the 
introduction of power machinery has added to 
the earlier risks due to live animals, while gen- 
eral factory work, in relation to the occupations 
just named, is comparatively safe. 

[71] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




FIRST AID ROOM. 

Up-to-date factories are equipped with first aid rooms where 
qualified physicians and nurses care for injured employees. 

Factories and Workshops 

Industrial safety laws in the United States 
most frequently deal with conditions in factories 
and workshops. Besides fixing a general min- 
imum age of fourteen years for employment of 
children in general factory work, many states 
set a minimum of sixteen years for more dan- 
gerous processes, and in some states an additional 
two years' maturity is required for entrance to 
a number of especially hazardous occupations. 
The sixteen-year limit usually applies to such 
employments as cleaning and oiling machinery, 

[72] 



SAFETY 



adjusting belts, and operating machine saws and 
grinding or stamping apparatus. Among the 
occupations for which an eighteen-year mini- 
mum is required are work in mines, at blast fur- 
naces, or on railroads, outside erection of elec- 
tric wires, and manufacture of explosives. Some 
states give the board of health or labor depart- 
ment power to add to these lists. Restrictions 
of this sort have repeatedly been upheld by the 
courts as a valid exercise of the police power, 
and in some states illegal employment of a child 
deprives the employer, in case of accident, of 
the defenses of "assumption of risk" and "con- 
tributory negligence/' 

Furnishing a reasonably safe place to work 
in is a duty long recognized as resting on the 
employer. With the growth of large scale pro- 
duction it has been found necessary to establish 
certain codes to make this principle effective. 
The first American law requiring factory safe- 
guards was passed by Massachusetts in 1877. 
Now practically every state has a factory and 
workshop act prescribing minimum conditions 
of safety. 

The point most frequently dealt with is safe- 
guarding machinery. Mechanism for transmit- 
ting power, such as belting, shafting, and gear- 
ing, as well as the active parts of machines, like 
saws, planers, mangles, and emery wheels, must 
usually be securely guarded. If this is impos- 
es] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

sible, it is sometimes required that notice of the 
danger be conspicuously posted. Loosely phrased 
requirements for fire escapes are found in many 
states, but it was not until disastrous factory 
fires had occurred in New York and New Jer- 
sey that scientific provisions for fire prevention 
and safe exits became general. Factory doors 
are supposed to swing out or to slide, and not 
to be locked during working hours. The courts 
have often held that failure to provide the re- 
quired safeguards in itself constitutes negligence 
on the employer's part, and that the workman 
does not assume the consequent risk. 

Mining 

Every state where mining is an important in- 
dustry has adopted legislation looking to the 
safety of the men who carry on this hazardous 
work underground. In many cases these min- 
ing codes are among the lengthiest, the most de- 
tailed, and the most complex of our labor laws. 

They usually require accurate maps showing 
all workings and open at all times to the mine 
inspectors, a sufficient number of escapement 
shafts, proper ventilation and supply of pure air, 
and periodic inspections to discover explosive 
or poisonous dusts or gases. Precautions against 
falling rock or coal must be taken by carefully 
timbering dangerous places. Rules are laid 

[74] 



SAFETY 




IN A GLORY HOLE 

This mine worker in case of a slide would have difficulty 
in reaching the distant safety rope. 



down for proper methods of drilling and blast- 
ing, protected hoisting cages, safety lamps, tele- 
phone connections, and sometimes a certain 
amount of first-aid equipment. Work of women 
in mines is usually prohibited. Enforcement of 
these provisions is usually given to a special body 
of mine inspectors. In 1910 a federal Bureau of 
Mines was established, which makes studies, 
publishes reports, and maintains mine rescue 
stations and cars, but has no power to enforce 
safety legislation. 

[75] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Railroads and Street Cars 

As the railroad pushed across the American 
continent, reports of deaths and maimings, par- 
ticularly in connection with the coupling of cars, 
became more frequent. A few states enacted 
protective laws, but with the spread of inter- 
state transportation it soon became evident that 
federal action was needed to avoid delay and 
secure uniformity. 

Accordingly the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission was in 1893 given authority over safety 
on the roads, and additional statutes required 
approved automatic couplers, grab-irons, power 
brakes, and other safety devices. In 1910 the 
commission was given further power to investi- 
gate train accidents and make public recommen- 
dations. In 1890, when only about 10 per cent, 
of railway cars were equipped with automatic 
couplers, casualties in the coupling of cars 
formed nearly half of all accidents to trainmen. 
By 191 2, when 99 per cent, of all cars were so 
equipped, coupling accidents formed only about 
8 per cent, of the total. In this legislation and 
its beneficial results the United States is far 
ahead of European countries, where for military 
reasons the various national railroad adminis- 
trations have feared to install uniform coupling 
devices. 

Recently much attention has been called to 

[76] 



SAFETY 




A MODERN STEEL MILL 

Direct descendant of the village blacksmith shop, 
the basic industries of our civilization. 



One of 



full-crew legislation, demanded by railroad 
workers on the ground that trains are continu- 
ally being made longer and heavier, without pro- 
portionate increase in the size of the crews. The 
railroads have fought these laws on the ground 
of increased operating expense, but nearly half 
the states have enacted them, and the Pennsyl- 
vania law has been upheld as a reasonable safety 
measure. Numerous states have also adopted 
regulations specifying the power of headlights, 
the blocking of frogs and switches, proper clear- 
ance along tracks, sheds for repair workers, and 

[77] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

other safeguards. Many states require railroad 
employees to pass tests for color blindness or 
other defects of vision. 

Employees on street or interurban railways are 
also frequently protected by state or municipal 
action. Among the requirements thus enforced 
are closed vestibules in winter, seats for motor- 
men, automatic brakes, and examination of em- 
ployees. 

Navigation 

Until 1 91 5 the American seaman was kept in a 
condition of semi-slavery through employment 
under a contract which was enforceable by im- 
prisonment. A few state laws regarding boiler 
inspection and signal lights, and timid federal 
legislation on size and experience of crews and 
certain conditions of living and working on ship- 
board, left the sailor still in an unsatisfactory 
position. 

In 191 5 Congress passed the far-reaching sea- 
men's act, which permits men to leave a ship in 
a safe port, and abolishes arrest and imprison- 
ment as a penalty for desertion. It furthermore 
makes provisions for proper washing places and 
sleeping quarters, additional life boats, and 
larger and better equipped crews. 

Certain other industries are brought under the 
safety regulations of some states. Typical pro- 
visions relate to scaffolding, fencing of hoist 

[78] 



SAFETY 




ARC WELDER'S HELMET. 

A necessary protection to the arc welder against the intense 
glare and flying particles of molten metal. 

holes, and filling in floors in the construction 
and painting of buildings. 

Administrative Orders 

Helpful as these safety laws have been, they 
disclose on close examination four fundamental 
defects. 

[79] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

First, they are incomplete. They cover only 
certain specific machines or processes or condi- 
tions which are in the minds of the legislators 
at the time, and others as dangerous or even 
more so are left unregulated. 

Again, they often fail to place direct respon- 
sibility on any one for improving conditions. 
Safeguards are required "in the discretion" of 
the commissioner of labor, or if he "so directs." 
The result is practical license to maintain danger 
spots until these are specifically pointed out by 
the inspector. 

Third, they lack well-defined standards. Leg- 
islators, not being industrial experts, could not 
be expected to draft specific safety standards for 
the vast variety of establishments in their states. 
Consequently they left the laws vague, and ex- 
pected poorly trained inspectors to determine in 
each case what was required. This discretion- 
ary power, often blunderingly or arbitrarily 
used, resulted in dissatisfaction to everyone con- 
cerned. 

Finally, the statutes were not flexible enough 
to meet rapidly changing conditions. The more 
careful and precise the statute, the more rapidly 
was it in danger of falling out of date due to 
technical developments. 

As a remedy for this situation, several of the 
most progressive states, such as New York, Ohio 
and Wisconsin, have adopted the method of ad- 

[80] 



SAFETY 



ministrative orders. The legislature lays down 
the general law that workplaces shall be made 
safe. Committees of employers, employees, and 
technical experts in the various industries are 
called together by the state industrial commis- 
sion to draft rules which shall achieve this re- 
sult. After public hearing these rules are issued 
by the commission, and have the force of law. 
Thus the experience of the worker, the interest 
of the employer, and the constructive ability of 
the trained technician are welded together in a 
co-operative effort for "Safety First." Further 
encouragement is given to this movement by the 
rapid spread of workmen's compensation laws, 
which make all accidents costly. 



L8i] 



Health 
Chapter Fife 



N 



OT only must industry be made rea- 
sonably safe from accident, it must be 
made free from preventable disease as 
well. 



Occupational Disease Reporting 

In the absence of widespread laws for work- 
men's health insurance, we have no reliable data 
on the amount of sickness in the country which 
is attributable to industrial causes. In 191 1 
California enacted the first American law re- 
quiring the reporting of occupational disease. 




DOUBLE "WRIST DROP." 

Hands of workman paralyzed for sixteen years as a result 
of lead poisoning. Five of his fellow workmen died. 

[83] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Within five years, as the result of vigorous and 
sustained effort, sixteen states enacted similar 
statutes. Yet the results from these laws have 
been meager. They have been useful mainly as 
affording occasional clues to individual plants 
where further precautions should be taken. For 
the country as a whole we must still depend on 
estimates. One group of experts concluded that, 
on the basis of 33,500,000 persons gainfully oc- 
cupied, no fewer than 284,000,000 days' illness 
occur annually, causing an economic waste of 
nearly $750,000,000. Fully one-quarter of this 
enormous waste, they computed, could be pre- 
vented by deliberate effort, largely in the direc- 
tion of greater care and cleanliness in the na- 
tion's workshops. 

Causes of Occupational Disease 

The causes which give rise to diseases so close- 
ly and unmistakably connected with the patient's 
work as to be justly considered occupational, 
are highly varied. They may be dangerous 
dusts, acids or fumes. Of these a careful list 
of fifty-four has been prepared by the Inter- 
national Association for Labor Legislation, 
under the name "industrial poisons." One of 
them, lead, is in constant use in more than 100 
trades, from embroidery to house-painting. It 
may cause lead colic, paralysis of the wrists 
("wrist drop"), or even death. Another is mer- 

[84] 



HEALTH 



cury, sometimes used in mirror and thermometer 
making and in fur work, which produces a pecu- 
liar type of palsy known as "hatters' shakes." 
Yellow phosphorus, formerly used in the manu- 
facture of matches, destroyed the jaws of those 
whom it attacked. During the war the suddenly 
increased use of picric acid and "trinitrotoluol" 
in filling shells, and of "tetrachlorethane" as a 
solvent in the varnish for airplane wings, gave 
rise to hundreds of cases of obscure poisoning 
and many deaths. Even if the dust given off in 
a trade is not poisonous — as the lint in a silk 
mill, or the grit in a quarry — after a long period 
of infiltration into the lungs it will cake the tis- 
sues and set up mechanical irritation and vari- 
ous forms of lung trouble. "Back in the first 
century after Christ," says Dr. Alice Hamilton, 
long an expert on these questions, "Pliny the 
Elder spoke of the diseases of slaves, lead poi- 
soning and mercury poisoning, and the consump- 
tion of knife grinders and potters. We have all 
of these still with us." 

Harmful germs and parasites also occur in 
industry. Thus the anthrax bacillus may infect 
tanners and workers in wool and hair, while 
miners' hookworm menaces those who toil under 
insanitary conditions amid warmth and moisture 
underground. The tunnel or caisson worker 
dreads compressed air illness or the "bends" 
caused by coming back too rapidly to an at- 

[85] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




PREVENTION OF LEAD POISONING. 

By use of wet methods of polishing, the dangerous dust can 
be kept down. 

mosphere of normal density. Telegraphers' 
cramp, a painful twitching of the eyeballs known 
as miners' nystagmus, and other occupational 
neuroses come from excessive strain and long 
continued use of a single set of muscles. More 
difficult to trace are the ailments which may arise 
in any industry from improper lighting, poor 
ventilation, and ill-regulated temperature and 
humidity. 

Health and Morals of Child Workers 

Many of the restrictions on child labor are 
designed as a protection not so much against 
accidents as against dangers to health and mor- 

[86] 



HEALTH 



als. Thus some states set a minimum age of six- 
teen years for employment with lead or com- 
positions containing poisonous acids. Others 
have fixed limits as high as eighteen or even 
twenty-one for night messenger service or other 
morally dangerous work. In a number of lead- 
ing states children applying for work permits 
must be physically examined, and educational 
requirements are common. 

Employment of Women and Men 

Because of their inherently weaker resistance 
to certain health dangers, as well as for moral 
reasons, women are frequently restricted from 
some kinds of work. Among these are occupa- 
tions which require constant standing, operation 
of emery or polishing wheels, and employment 
in saloons. Some states forbid the employment of 
women in manufacturing or mercantile establish- 
ments for a few weeks before and after child- 
birth. 

Legal regulations for the exclusion of men 
from dangerous employments apply only to in- 
dividuals who are found by examination to be 
unable to withstand the hazards. Thus a few 
states bar from work in compressed air men who 
fail to pass a physical test or who use intoxicants 
to excess. But most common occupational dis- 
eases come on so slowly that the examination 
must be repeated periodically if health is to be 

[87] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




"DOPING" AIRPLANE WINGS. 

The varnish which kept the birdmens wings taut contained 
a poisonous substance known as " tetrachlor ethane " 

properly guarded. Such examinations are pro- 
vided for in these compressed air laws, and also 
in the "lead laws" of half a dozen important lead 
using states. In bakeshops and other food es- 
tablishments statutes occasionally prohibit the 
employment of persons with a contagious disease 
which might be passed on to fellow workers or 
to consumers of the product. 

Prohibition of Dangerous Substances 

Another form of prohibitive legislation de- 
signed to protect health forbids the industrial 
use of well-known poisons or other disease-pro- 

[88] 



HEALTH 



ducing agencies. Ten European countries have 
united in an international treaty banning poison- 
ous phosphorus in the match industry, and the 
United States attained the same result by levying 
a prohibitive tax of two cents a hundred on 
matches made with this ingredient. Canada and 
Mexico and a number of colonies have also 
outlawed it. Some European countries, notably 
France, have taken steps to prohibit the use of 
lead in paint. 

Famous in textile history is the "kiss of death" 
shuttle, which requires the operative to suck the 
thread into it. Several New England states now 
forbid the use of shuttles of this type, but be- 
cause of the difficulty of finding satisfactory 
substitutes the laws are not very effective. Con- 
tagious diseases among glass blowers are guarded 
against in France and Portugal by requiring 
individual blowpipes. Use of the common 
drinking cup or towel is forbidden in some states, 
and pure drinking water is often required. 

Regulation of Workshop Conditions 

Less drastic than the principle of prohibition 
is that of regulation, which has been followed 
in most enactments on industrial hygiene. Dust 
and fume, whether metallic, chemical, vegetable 
or animal in origin, and whether poisonous or 
not, are among the most insidious and serious of 
modern health hazards. Illness and death of 

[89 1 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

wage-earners vary almost in direct proportion 
to the contamination of the air supply in their 
occupation. Hence about half the states have 
enacted provisions that factories shall be ven- 
tilated, but the wording is in most cases so vague 
that it means little. More important are the 
statutes which require the removal of dangerous 
dust and fume at the point of origin by specially 
constructed hoods, hoppers, and exhaust fans. 
Regulations of this type have been established 
either by statute or by administrative order prin- 
cipally in the large lead using states. As addi- 
tional precautions most of these laws require 
wet cleaning methods, respirators, washing fa- 
cilities, special working clothing, separate wash- 
ing and lunch rooms and prohibit the bringing 
of food or drink into the work places. Similar 
provisions in other countries have helped reduce 
the risk of lead poisoning far below previous 
American experience. 

Despite recent striking increase in the number 
of anthrax cases among tanners and leather work- 
ers, the United States has done little to combat 
this striking industrial disease. Common legal 
safeguards in other countries include disinfec- 
tion of hides, hair and bristles, special overalls, 
neck coverings and gloves, and facilities for 
thorough washing. 

Some states forbid sleeping in workrooms, and 
some require that rags for wiping machinery be 

[90] 



HEALTH 




ANTHRAX GERMS. 

The slender rod-like bodies are the anthrax bacilli among 
the blood corpuscles of a patient. 



sanitary. To guard against infection from small 
wounds, the requirement of factory "first-aid" 
kits is growing. 

Particularly striking is the special protection 
of women manifested in the legislation requir- 
ing seats, toilets, and dressing rooms. Almost 
every state requires seats for women in mercan- 
tile establishments, and a majority extend the 
provision to manufacturing. These laws are of 
little importance, as it is practically impossible 
to make sure that use of seats is permitted. Near- 
ly every state requires sanitary and separate toi- 

[91] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

lets for women workers in addition to those for 
men. 

Tenement house manufacture, or the Sweat- 
shop" system, is often held up as a pleasant and 
easy method by which poor women and children 
can add at leisure to the family income. As 
a matter of fact, such work has usually proved 
a menace to wage standards and to existing labor 
laws. Congestion, insanitary conditions, unregu- 
lated hours and unrestricted child labor flour- 
ish when thousands of tenement factories are 
added to the burden of the factory inspector. At- 
tempts to prohibit tenement house manufacture 
have so far been ruled out by the courts, but 
further restrictions are gradually being secured. 

In the field of industrial hygiene as well as in 
safety work it has been found inefficient for the 
legislature to enact hard and fast standards 
which are incapable of amendment until the fol- 
lowing session. So diverse are the requirements 
of different industries, and so rapidly do tech- 
nical processes change, that here also there is 
need of the method of regulation by continuing 
investigation by committees of those directly in- 
terested, under supervision of an industrial com- 
mission. When occupational and other sick- 
ness is brought under social insurance as acci- 
dents already are, much more attention will be 
paid to its prevention. 



[92] 



Self-Government in Industry 

CHAPTER SIX 

WORKING people did not always have 
the right to organize into unions for 
the advancement of their own inter- 
ests, as they have to-day in most 
civilized countries. When the craftsmen's guilds 
of the middle ages gave way a century ago to 
the present industrial system based upon the 
relation of employers and employees, the work- 
men were often forbidden to meet for the dis- 
cussion of trade matters. Associations of wage- 
earners were declared to be "conspiracies," and 
were prohibited by law in both England and 
France. 

The idea that unions of workers were con- 
spiracies was brought to America by the colo- 
nists, and many strikes or movements for better 
pay in this country were followed by prosecu- 
tions. In the earliest cases the juries always 
convicted. But the spread of the factory system, 
throwing workers together in larger and larger 
groups, and giving them a sense of their com- 
mon interest, directly encouraged organization. 
In 1824 and 1825 the conspiracy statutes in Eng- 
land were repealed, and during the following 
decade in America the doctrine was gradually 

[93] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




HATTERS' SHAKES. 

Hatters, mirror makers and others who come in contact 

ivith mercury, contract a peculiar palsy or 

trembling of the hands. 

modified by common consent and interpretation 
by the courts. 

Growth of Trade Unions 
The first recorded trade union in America 
was a little local organized by the Philadelphia 
shoemakers in 1792. By 1833 the workers had 
learned the value of all the trades in one center 
sticking together, and the first city federation 
of unions in various crafts was formed in New 
York. Three years later the shoemakers built 
up the first national union, which took in mem- 
bers of their trade throughout the country. Now 
there are about 125 such national unions, repre- 
senting most of the important trades, and affil- 
iated mainly with the American Federation of 

[94] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

Labor. Their membership includes some 4,- 
000,000 people, or about one-tenth of all the 
gainfully-employed in the country. In England 
and other countries the proportion of those 
organized is much larger. 

Many employers, including some of the larg- 
est corporations, still bitterly oppose all at- 
tempts of their men to organize, and will not 
allow a union member to work for them if they 
know it. In their efforts to prevent the growth 
of unionism they are assisted by certain Supreme 
Court decisions. In one case the court declared 
that employers had a perfect right to discharge 
workmen for joining a union. In another case 
this highest court in the country decided that 
a union had no right to attempt to organize men 
if they had agreed as a condition of employment 
not to join any union. These two decisions to- 
gether seem to make it possible for powerful 
employers absolutely to destroy all organiza- 
tion among their working force, although they 
themselves have full scope to unite in manufac- 
turers' or employers' associations of various sorts. 
Nevertheless, the legal right to organize is now 
generally recognized. To protect this right Con- 
gress a few years ago passed the Clayton act, 
which declared that "labor is not a commodity" 
and for a time it was thought by many that this 
would prohibit the laws against trusts from 
being interpreted so as to interfere with the 

[95] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




CAISSON IN FULL OPERATION. 

Workers {"sand hogs") at bottom of caisson work under 

atmospheric pressure to prevent water from flowing in. 

[96] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

existence of labor organizations. During the 
war, in order to prevent serious unrest and con- 
sequent reduction of output, the government 
went even further. Through the War Labor 
Board and other bodies for the settlement of dis- 
putes it induced many anti-union employers, 
temporarily at least, to permit unions in their 
establishments. 

Following the war there were a number of 
adverse court decisions, including those in the 
Duplex Printing Press case in 1921, and the 
Coronado Coal case in June, 1922, which, despite 
the Clayton Act, seriously limited the freedom 
of trade unions. 

Strikes and Lockouts 

But while the right of labor unions to exist 
is no longer questioned in this country, they are 
still hampered in many of their activities. 
Forced labor is slavery, and therefore is not per- 
mitted in America except as a punishment for 
crime. Hence a man cannot be compelled to 
work if he wants to quit, even if he has signed 
a contract to work. But when many men quit 
together, the action becomes a "strike," and this 
act, the most essential of labor's weapons, has 
often been condemned as illegal. 

The theory on which some strikes are con- 
demned is that many persons acting together have 
a power for harm which no one person pos- 

[971 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




PROTECTED FROM DUST 

Respirators keep flying particles of metal from getting into 
grinders' lungs. 

sesses. The deciding point appears to be the 
rather vague one of whether the movement is 
designed primarily to benefit the strikers, or to 
injure the employer or non-unionists. Thus 
strikes for higher wages or shorter hours are 
everywhere considered lawful. But strikes to 
gain a closed shop, sympathetic strikes, strikes 
against obnoxious foremen or non-union mate- 
rial, and strikes growing out of jurisdiction dis- 
putes between rival unions, have been con- 
demned in many states. Only in California is it 
settled law that all strikes are legal. On the 

[98] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

other hand, the right of an employer to close 
his shop when he wishes, in other words to 
enforce a "lock-out," is still unquestioned. 

Picketing 

Strikes cannot be won if the employer is able 
to fill his shop with strike-breakers. Hence the 
strikers try to prevent the employer from get- 
ting them. They may do this either through 
persuasion or through intimidation. All courts 
agree that intimidation is unlawful, but persua- 
sion is usually permitted. 

There is, however, no very clear line between 
the two. Many courts uphold peaceful picket- 
ing, but others declare that there is no such thing. 
Charges of violence are often made by both 
strikers and employer, but the evidence is sel- 
dom clear, and most decisions have gone against 
organized labor. In several states the courts 
have condemned all picketing, and some have 
even made it illegal by statute. 

Boycott and Blacklist 

Another collective weapon of labor to secure 
its demands is the boycott. The cooks or waiters 
may by pickets or advertising attempt to turn 
trade away from a restaurant keeper who refuses 
to hire union help or to grant union conditions. 
This is a so-called "primary" boycott. But few 

[99] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

employers sell directly to consumers. If the hat- 
ters wished to enforce a boycott on a hat manu- 
facturer, they would have to appeal to their 
friends not to purchase his goods from the haber- 
dashers. This would bring into the matter a 
third party, the retailer, who was not directly 
concerned in the original quarrel, and would 
constitute a "secondary" boycott. 

As early as 1886 boycotts were declared il- 
legal, and many decisions have since confirmed 
this view. Both kinds of boycotts are usually 
condemned, but the court statements against pri- 
mary boycotts are all incidental references in 
decisions which condemn secondary boycotts. 
The argument against the secondary boycott is 
usually that it amounts to an attempt to coerce 
a third party, and therefore is a conspiracy. 

Until 1908, however, boycotting was conduct- 
ed openly and fearlessly. Trade union papers 
customarily carried long lists of employers 
under the heading "Unfair" or "We don't pat- 
ronize." In the year mentioned a Danbury hat 
manufacturer was awarded triple damages and 
costs under the anti-trust law for alleged in- 
juries to his business through a boycott started 
by the hatters' union in the struggle to organize 
his shop. More than $230,000 was levied against 
the union, and as it could not pay, the threat was 
made that the homes of several members would 
be sold to satisfy the judgment. This was avert- 

[100] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 




CLEANLINESS BREEDS HEALTH. 

Workers should not eat or leave the factory without 
thoroughly washing their hands. 

ed by collection of an assessment among the or- 
ganized workers generally. Less use is now 
made of the boycott than formerly. 

The weapon in the employer's hands which 
most closely corresponds to the boycott is the 
"blacklist," or the agreement not to employ cer- 
tain workmen. Most states have laws prohibit- 
ing blacklisting, but they are dead letters. In 
these days of watermarked paper, telegraph, and 
telephone, it is easy for one employer to give 
another secret information which may lead to a 
workman's discharge. The employer's right to 

[101] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




A FACTORY HOSPITAL. 

Hospitals in modern industrial establishments help to main- 
tain health and efficiency. 

discharge is absolute, and the man who is de- 
prived of a livelihood usually has no proof 
against the person who supplied the information. 

"Open" and "Closed" Shop 
As already stated, strikes to secure a "closed" 
shop are often held to be illegal. A closed shop 
is one in which only members of the union are 
permitted to work. Employers object to this re- 
striction as an interference with their business, 
and are likely to contend for the "open" shop, in 
which theoretically any one, union or non-union, 
may find employment. In practice, however, 

[102] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

the open shop in name is usually a closed 
shop in an opposite sense — closed to union mem- 
bers. Unionists point out that if they allow non- 
members to slip in, their own control of the 
shop is weakened and standards are soon low- 
ered. Wages are cut, or hours lengthened, or 
the beginnings of industrial democracy are 
stamped out. Since the employers' right to or- 
ganize is unquestioned, labor believes that it 
should be given equal privilege. 

Mediation or Conciliation 

In the effort to secure industrial peace, vari- 
ous plans have grown up for preventing dis- 
putes between employers and employees from 
becoming acute, or for bringing the two sides 
together after a break has occurred. About 
three-quarters of the states have permanent 
boards for this purpose. The federal govern- 
ment also has various provisions of the sort, the 
best known having been the War Labor Board 
created in 191 8. In mediation or conciliation 
the government officials act as go-betweens con- 
sulting employers and employees in turn. They 
carry proposals from one to the other, or bring 
them into joint conference, so that an agreement 
may be reached. The opportunity for sympa- 
thetic and tactful work in this direction is very 
large, and settlements gained in this way are 
likely to satisfy both parties. 

[103] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




SHOP COMMITTEE MEETING. 

The members of this committee meet periodically to discuss 
the problems arising out of their work. 

Arbitration 

Another method of settling trade disputes is 
arbitration, in which a binding decision is given 
by an outside agency. Attempts to require the 
compulsory submission of disagreements to an 
arbitration tribunal never made much headway 
in England, except for a time during the war, 
but in New Zealand and Australia compulsory 
arbitration boards have been universally estab- 
lished within a couple of decades. One reason 
for this trend is the growth of political democ- 
racy, which brought about more confidence of 

[104] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

the people in the government. Another is the 
demand of employers for protection against the 
more powerful unions. As a means of prevent- 
ing strikes these laws have often been commend- 
ed, but they have not prevented suspension of 
work in some important cases. 

A Canadian law requires the compulsory in- 
vestigation of industrial disputes and prohibits 
strikes or lockouts in public utilities and mines 
without due notice. The miners are hostile to 
the law, as they say it gives the companies time 
to secure strike-breakers and to pile up stocks 
of coal. Employers favor the act, and it seems 
on the whole to have diminished the number 
of strikes. A similar statute was adopted by 
Colorado in 1915, but has aroused much bitter- 
ness among organized labor. Kansas, in 1920, 
enacted a unique American law for compulsory 
arbitration, but it has caused continual disorder 
and has not been copied elsewhere. 

At the same time, many prominent employers 
and labor representatives favor the existence of 
state or federal tribunals before which disputes 
can be voluntarily laid by those concerned, with 
the understanding that the decision will be bind- 
ing. The War Labor Board, created to meet 
emergency situations in munitions, shipbuilding 
and other essential industries, acquired a coun- 
try-wide reputation for fair and enlightened de- 
cisions. 

[105] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Toward Industrial Democracy 

The emphasis laid on the idea of democracy 
during the war had its echo in industry. It sud- 
denly strengthened the demand which labor had 
been falteringly making for representation in 
economic as well as in political affairs. More 
and more of late have the workers been striving 
not only for better wages, hours, and conditions, 
but for an actual voice in industrial manage- 
ment. The British "shop stewards' " movement, 




PRACTICAL RETRAINING. 

Maimed worker learning draftsmanship in spite of loss of 

an arm. 

[106] 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

which aims to set up in the shops a form of 
trade union administration more responsive to 
the wishes of the rank and file, is only another 
manifestation of this tendency. 

During the war labor in all countries secured 
a degree of recognition little known before. Its 
leaders became cabinet ministers. It had a seat 
on governing boards of important war indus- 
tries. It awoke to a new sense of its own respon- 
sibility and power which it is not likely to lose 
in the future. 

Notably in England has constructive attention 
been paid to the new aspirations of the working 
masses. There a joint official commission of 
employers and trade union leaders, while the 
conflict with Germany was still on, submitted 
to the government a detailed plan for labor's 
participation in the government of industry. 
The commission recommended the establish- 
ment, in all important branches of production, 
of joint standing industrial councils composed 
of representatives of both employers and em- 
ployees. These councils are to consider such 
questions as industrial relations, wage adjust- 
ments, security of employment, technical educa- 
tion and improvement, legislation, and extension 
to the workpeople of further responsibility for 
determining their conditions of labor. To as- 
sist in these objects, district councils within each 
industry are proposed, organized on the same 

[107] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

basis of joint representation, and under these 
there are to be works committees for individual 
plants. About sixty national industrial councils 
were in operation in Great Britain on March 31, 
1922. In the United States where the period 
immediately following the war was one of in- 
creased hostility to organized labor, the move- 
ment for increased representation of the workers 
in industrial management made much less prog- 
ress. 



[108] 



Social Insurance 
Chapter Seven 

AS long ago as 1559 Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
in opening Queen Elizabeth's first 
Parliament, referred to the fact that 
wise merchants "in every adventure 
of danger" paid part of the value of their 
cargo to have the rest insured. Other kinds 
of insurance soon sprang up, so that to-day we 
have fire insurance, burglary insurance, hail in- 
surance, and many similar devices for distribut- 
ing economically among many the losses which 
would otherwise fall crushingly upon a few. 
For the working man and woman, who depend 
for a livelihood not on income from property but 
on wages earned by their daily labor, some form 
of insurance is equally necessary to protect them 
against destitution following industrial accident, 
sickness, unemployment, invalidity, and old age. 
Still it has been found that the mass of wage- 
earners do not readily take out insurance against 
these hazards through ordinary commercial 
channels. The reasons for this failure are partly 
the inadequate incomes of the majority of wage- 
earners, which leave insufficient margin for the 
purpose, partly the excessive cost of private in- 
surance operated for profit, and partly lack of 

[109] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




REDUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS 

Decrease in one large establishment after the passage 
of the New York workmen's compensation law. 

foresight. Collective action has been found nec- 
essary if the insurance is to become general. 
The system of providing wage-earners with rea- 
sonable protection against the hazards of life by 
legislative enactment, at low cost, often assisted 
by contributions from employers, and usually 
with the element of compulsion introduced, is 
called social insurance. 

In addition to warding off destitution due to 
mischance, insurance has another very desirable 
social effect. It gives force to efforts for cut- 
ting down the risk, so as to reduce the cost of 
the insurance. "If society and industry and the 
individual," said Louis D. Brandeis, in 1911, 

[no] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



before he became a member of the Supreme 
Court, "were made to pay from day to day the 
actual cost of sickness, accident, invalidity, pre- 
mature death, or premature old age consequent 
upon excessive hours of labor, of unhygienic con- 
ditions of work, of unnecesary risk, and of ir- 
regularity of employment, those evils would be 
rapidly reduced." This prophecy has already 
been strikingly fulfilled with regard to indus-. 
trial accidents. 

Workmen s Compensation for Accidents 

Accidents are spectacular. They occur at a 
definite time, and responsibility can usually be 
fixed. Probably for these reasons the first form 
of social insurance to be extensively developed in 
the United States was workmen's compensation 
for industrial accidents. 

Before the introduction of workmen's compen- 
sation laws the injured employee could recover 
for his suffering, maiming, loss of earnings, and 
expense of medical treatment only by suing his 
employer in a court of law. As such action was 
likely to mean discharge, few employees sought 
their legal remedy unless the injury were very 
severe and the expected indemnity correspond- 
ingly large. 

If a case was brought to court, the employer 
sought shelter behind a number of traditional 
legal defenses. One was the "fellow servant" 

[in] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 




- ■'.'■ Xo Compensation Laws. 

[•. ] Compensation Law, but no State 

^~ Fund. 

I I Compensation Law, with State Fund 



WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAWS 
JULY i, 1922 
In addition, Hawaii and Porto Rico, and the federal govern- 
ment for its own employees have compensation laws. 

rule, by which it was frequently held that some 
other workman, not the employer, was respon- 
sible for the injury. Since most employees now- 
a-days work in large groups, this was very often 
the case, and the injured workman lost his suit. 
Another defense of the employers was "contribu- 
tory negligence," which meant that the victim 

[112] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



of the accident had brought it on himself by 
some want of care, however slight. Finally, the 
employer might claim immunity under the prin- 
ciple of "assumption of risk." According to this 
principle the workman by accepting employment 
took upon himself all the customary hazards of 
the occupation, and also any extraordinary risk 
of which he became aware, but in spite of which 
he continued working. 

It can readily be seen that under such condi- 
tions injured workmen, or their dependents if 
the accident were fatal, stood small chance of 
recovering damages. Moreover, employers usu^ 
ally insured their liability with casualty insur- 
ance companies, which maintained strong bat- 
teries of expert legal talent for defeating work- 
men's claims. Investigations showed that of 
every $100 paid by employers in liability pre- 
miums, only about $28 ever reached the claim- 
ants, and so late that the worst of the need was 
past. 

Rising dissatisfaction with these methods re- 
sulted in the American movement for work- 
men's compensation legislation similar to that 
which was already in force in some European 
countries for decades. Two pioneer statutes were 
declared unconstitutional, but in 191 1 the first 
state compensation act to go into permanent ef- 
fect was secured in New Jersey. In the period 
1911-1922 the legislation spread to forty-five 

[113] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



Accident and Sickness 
as factors in producing dependency 

Mpfedftvma My of 31.481 Charity Gases by the Med States Inmiyntion Comsiission. 1909 

Sickness was a factor in 12.082 cases, or 38.3% of the total number 
Accident was a factor in 1.211 cases.or 3.8% of the total number 



Sickness:6M4 cases 



j 

Accident: 1.004 cases ™^ 
Putridity of Breadwinner Jttcne 



1 

Ss Sickness: 12.082 cases 
S^H Accident: 1211 casea 

Disability of Breadwinner or of 
other Member of 9amily 



Sickness is a factor in 6 Vz times as much dependency as is 
industrial accident. The State requires insurance against industrial 
accident but not yet against sickness, a more urgent need. 



NEED FOR HEALTH INSURANCE. 

states and territories, and the United States gov- 
ernment adopted a model act covering its own 
half million civilian employees. The validity of 
these laws has now been established beyond ques- 
tion by favorable decisions of the Supreme Court. 
The direct aim of these laws is twofold — to 
restore the injured man to industry as completely 
and quickly as possible, and to provide for the 
support of the family during the period of dis- 
ability. Most American laws provide for medi- 
cal care, but many hedge it in with limits rang- 
ing from one week to ninety days in time or from 
$25 to $250 in amount. To lighten the admin- 
istrative burden and to discourage men from 

[114] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



"laying off" unduly for minor injuries, most laws 
set a "waiting period" of from three days to two 
weeks during which no compensation is paid. 
As only about 25 per cent, of accidents requiring 
medical care cause disability for more than two 
weeks it is clear that the latter period is too long. 
For death and disability the best laws, such as 
those of New York and Ohio, award 66 2/3 per 
cent, of wages, within certain limits. Death bene- 
fits in the good laws are paid until the widow 
dies or remarries, and disability benefits during 
the disability even if it be lifelong. For partial 
disability several sliding scales have been de- 
vised to apportion compensation to the degree 
of incapacity. Important provisions in most of 
the acts require employers to insure their risk, 
sometimes in a state fund, in order to guarantee 
benefits to the injured, and provide for super- 
visory administration by a state bureau or com- 
mission. A beginning has also been made in 
providing vocational reeducation or "rehabilita- 
tion" for men who sustain permanent injuries 
which interfere with their continuing in their 
old occupations. 

In about a dozen laws, including the federal 
employees' act, occupational diseases are cov- 
ered. It has been found that so doing staves off 
hardships in some meritorious cases, and in- 
creases the cost of the act only 1 or 2 per cent. 

[115] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Health Insurance 

Most sickness from which wage-earners suf- 
fer, however, cannot be clearly and directly 
traced to industry. Therefore even the wide 
adoption of occupational disease compensation 
would leave most of the sickness hazard uncov- 




(Courtesy New York Women's Joint Legislative Conference.) 

"PROTECTED !" 

This workingman's family if ready for the inevitable "rainy 

day" caused by sickness. 

[116] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



ered. Further protection is needed if the pres- 
ent enormous yearly wage losses and doctors' 
bills are to be more equitably distributed. 

The draft boards have shown that about a 
third of America's young manhood is physically 
unfit for military service. Sickness causes seven 
times as much appeal to charity as do industrial 
accidents. About one-third of those too ill to 
work are getting no medical care. Every year 
15,000 mothers die from causes connected with 
childbirth, and 250,000 infants are carried off 
in the first year of their lives. Throughout the 
country the degenerative diseases — the wear and 
tear diseases — are on the increase. 

These well-known facts point to the need for 
social action, and one of the most frequently 
indicated steps is the establishment of workmen's 
health insurance. Official investigating commis- 
sions in five states have reported in favor of this 
measure. A bill passed by the New York state 
senate with the full backing of the state fed- 
eration of labor and scores of civic organizations 
sought to provide for sick wage-earners and their 
dependents full medical care for twenty-six 
weeks in any year, and special maternity care for 
insured women and wives of insured men. Cash 
benefit, in order not to interfere with trade union 
and fraternal benefit funds, was set at 66 2/3 of 
wages, but in no case more than $8 a week. A 
burial benefit of $100 was included. 

[117] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

The expense of these benefits was to be met by 
equal contributions from employers and work- 
men. Administration was in the hands of local 
mutual funds democratically managed by repre- 
sentatives of both sides, under supervision of the 
state industrial commission. 

Health insurance systems on this general plan 
are in successful operation in ten European 
countries, including England. In Italy, so im- 
portant was maternity insurance considered that 
a compulsory system was inaugurated long be- 
fore general health insurance was taken up. 
These laws have furnished the workers in the 
respective countries better medical care than 
they ever enjoyed before, have distributed large 
sums in cash benefits to prevent destitution in the 
families of the sick, and have exerted telling in- 
fluence on the development of measures for 
"Health First" in industrial and community 
circles. 

Unemployment Insurance 

Destitution due to unemployment, which was 
until recently considered a matter of purely in- 
dividual concern or of charity, is now also com- 
ing to be recognized as an evil that should be met 
by the forethought of society as a whole. 

Unemployment insurance originated first 
among labor unions, which footed the cost them- 
selves without outside aid. This method 

[118] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



achieved considerable success in Europe, but in 
the United States only a few national unions or 
local branches are known to pay out-of-work 
benefits, Apparently the burden is too heavy 
and grievous to be borne by the workers without 
assistance. 

In the effort to encourage wage-earners to pro- 
vide in time of employment for their needs when 
work was slack, the city of Ghent in Belgium 
adopted in 1901 the plan of offering subsidies to 
trade unions which paid unemployment benefits. 
This "Ghent system" rapidly spread to other 
countries. The subsidies vary from 33 1/3 to 
100 per cent, of the amounts expended by the 
unions. It is generally recognized, however, 
that even this voluntary subsidized plan fails to 
reach a large enough number of workers. The 
lesson taught by other branches of social insur- 
ance points to obligatory insurance as the solu- 
tion of the problem. 

Great Britain is the country which has most 
thoroughly heeded the lesson. There, as part 
of the national insurance act of 191 1, which dealt 
also with health insurance, a nation-wide system 
of compulsory unemployment protection was set 
up. At the outset about 2,500,000 workmen were 
covered, but this number has since been extended 
until no fewer than twelve million workers are 
thus protected. Employer, employee, and the 
government contribute to a fund from which, in 

[119] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

case of unemployment, the worker receives a 
small weekly cash benefit for fifteen weeks in 
any year. 

As a protection to the employer, a workman 
is refused benefit while on strike, or if he has quit 
without due cause or is discharged on just 
grounds. On the other hand, an unemployed 
man does not forfeit his benefits if he refuses to 
act as a strike breaker or to take wages below his 
usual rate or the current rate in the community. 
To prevent abuse, the system is administered in 




CourUiy of 
Anaciation fot 
Later Ltgitiotion 




WHY NOT EQUAL PROTECTION ? 

American workman's social insurance protection compared 
with British ivorkman's. 

[120] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



close connection with the public employment 
offices, so that a man's inability to secure a place 
can be rapidly tested. 

Recent voluntary experiments of progressive 
American employers have established the prac- 
ticability of unemployment compensation and 
bills have been introduced in several state legis- 
latures to make such insurance universal. 

Invalidity Insurance 

Invalidity, or a chronic condition of disability 
not caused by accident, partakes somewhat of the 
nature of both sickness and old age. Perhaps for 
this reason insurance against it is carried in Eng- 
land along with the former, and in other coun- 
tries with the latter. In any case the same mo- 
tives of humanity and social foresight which lead 
to protection against pauperism from the other 
hazards of life should result in provision for in- 
validity also. 

Old Age Insurance 

Rapid development of industry has empha- 
sized the individual's earning power. Old age 
has been deprived of the esteem once bestowed 
on it, and the worn-out worker is likely to be cast 
unfeelingly on the scrap-heap of industry. 

To ward off old age poverty, three methods 
have been practiced — charity, saving, and insur- 
ance. Charity, however, is now looked upon as 

[121] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

inadequate, degrading, and uncertain. Indi- 
vidual saving is unnecessarily expensive, even if 
prevalent low wages did not prevent or cripple 
it. There is left the method of insurance. 

Voluntary old age insurance or pension plans 
are found in a few American fraternal societies 
and trade unions. Commercial old age insur- 
ance, which is fairly wide spread among the mid- 
dle class in Europe, is hardly known here. 

As a consequence of the slight spread of purely 
voluntary insurance plans, a number of coun- 
tries and one or two American states have seen 
fit to encourage them by offering subsidies. But 
even state assistance and supervision have failed 
to reap large results. Experts agree that even 
generous subsidies attract only a few wage-earn- 
ers, and that the resultant benefits are small and 
uncertain. 

Compulsory old age insurance is found in half 
a dozen countries, but the benefits are so small 
as to be almost negligible, and they are granted 
in most places only to persons completely unable 
to earn a living. Another method, found in 
Great Britain, Australia, and elsewhere, is the 
establishment of straight non-contributory pen- 
sions. It is sometimes objected that such pen- 
sions tend to keep down wages, destroy the habit 
of thrift, and injure family solidarity. It is re- 
plied that persons old enough for pensions are a 
very slight item in the labor market, that thrift is 

[ 122 ] 



SOCIAL INSURANCE 



already made difficult or impossible by low 
wages, and that the regard of children for their 
parents is not enhanced by the latter's being 
wholly dependent. 

In the United States it is estimated that about 
1,250,000 of the people over sixty-five years of 
age are dependent upon public or private char- 
ity, to the amount of about $250,000,000 annu- 
ally. Yet, declares a leading authority, "the 
United States is the only great industrial nation 
in the civilized world that has not already at- 
tempted a practical and permanent solution of 
this problem of old age and dependency." The 
federal government, however, in 1920, finally 
established a system of compulsory, contributory 
old age and disability insurance for the govern- 
ment's 300,000 employees in the classified civil 
service. And within recent years public em- 
ployees of several states and cities have won 
similar protection. But private employees are 
still neglected. Of late the trade unions have 
taken up the matter vigorously, and several state 
commissions have been appointed to study it, so 
that developments in this direction may be 
looked for in the near future. 



[123] 



ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

Chapter Eight 

LABOR legislation, no matter how good 
it may look, is of little use unless it is 
intelligently and thoroughly enforced. 
A statute which confers on the workers 
certain rights or guarantees them a certain pro- 
tection is only a scrap of paper unless it is lived 
up to. 

The early labor laws both in this country and 
abroad merely made pious general statements 
about what should or should not be done. They 
provided no officer specifically charged with the 
duty of seeing that their provisions were car- 
ried out. It was left to the person who con- 
sidered himself aggrieved to complain to the 
sheriff, policeman, prosecuting attorney, or 
other official of the court, who was then supposevl 
to prosecute. 

As far as employers were concerned, this ar- 
rangement was satisfactory. If a body of work- 
men went on strike for higher wages, and thus 
seemed to their employer to violate the statute 
forbidding "conspiracy," he could usually en- 
gage lawyers and have the alleged offenders 
brought to bar. For the workmen, however, the 
situation was very different. They did not dare 
complain for fear of discharge. They had not 

[125] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

the means to retain attorneys. The public offi- 
cials who were supposed to handle such mat- 
ters were local functionaries, afraid of antag- 
onizing the wealthy and influential members of 
the community, and usually had other duties 
more pressing. This is the condition which still 
exists in some states. 

Labor Bureaus 

The first state labor bureau in the world, es- 
tablished in Massachusetts in 1869, had for its 
purpose the collection of information on wages, 
hours and working conditions. Even the labor 
unions which struggled until they secured its 
creation did not yet realize the need of giving 
it power to enforce the labor laws. Similar 
bureaus have now been established in nearly all 
the states and by the federal government. As 
more experience was gained, the functions of 
these bureaus were expanded. From time to 
time they were called upon to carry on investi- 
gations which would otherwise have been con- 
ducted by special legislative commissions. 

Factory Inspectors 

In 1879 Massachusetts again took the lead by 
appointing the first American factory inspectors. 
These officials formed a class of special state 
police, whose duty it was to investigate con- 
ditions in the workplaces, to secure their own 

[126] 



ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

evidence of any violations, and then to conduct 
the prosecutions without calling upon the em- 
ployees to testify. About half the states now 
have such inspectors, the force in New York, 
the largest manufacturing commonwealth, num- 
bering more than 150. In most cases the fac- 
tory inspection bureau has been combined with 
the bureau of labor statistics, but in some states 
both of these bodies are in existence side by 
side. 

A number of reasons have combined to make 
much factory inspection in this country rather 
ineffective. The inspectors have usually been 
political place holders who had little or no train- 
ing for their important work. They are poorly 
paid. They are frequently changed. They re- 
ceive little recognition for honest, efficient work, 
and lack opportunity for promotion and a pro- 
fessional career. They are often far too few 
for the volume of work. A great deal of their 
time is spent in collecting statistics which are 
incomplete and usually out of date when they 
appear. Meanwhile the courts are frequently 
declaring labor laws unconstitutional partly be- 
cause sufficient facts are not presented to dem- 
onstrate conclusively the need and the reason- 
ableness of the legislation. This whole matter 
is now undergoing widespread discussion, and a 
number of promising attempts at improvement 
are under way. 

[127] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 



1 INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION 



Employers 




Committee Meetings and Proposed Rules.1 

i 



Public Hearings. 



I 



f .Administrative Orders- i 

\ - - 




Employment 
Bureaus 



Trade 
Disputes 



Occidents 
and Diseases 



Woman ar\& 
Child Labor. 




Slatisties/Exhibitsand Publications. | 



OUTLINE OF ADMINISTRATION UNDER A 
STATE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION. 



[128] 



ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

Industrial Commissions 

Under the American theory of government 
the legislature is given the duty of investigat- 
ing conditions and drafting necessary measures 
in accordance therewith. Growing complexity 
of conditions makes this duty more and more 
difficult, if not impossible, to fulfil. Legisla- 
tive assemblies, composed mainly of lawyers and 
farmers, cannot hope to become experts on tech- 
nical industrial matters. Moreover, even if they 
do investigate all details, the resulting legisla- 
tion in a short time becomes out of date and 
ceases to be applicable to every establishment 
and to every circumstance. As a result, the 
factory inspectors are forced to decide in their 
own discretion whether to enforce the law as it 
stands or not. This leads to inequality of ad- 
ministration, and opens the way to arbitrariness 
and even corruption. 

Remedy for this breakdown was sought by 
creating permanent commissions to deal with 
special labor matters. Thus a dozen states have 
declared that women and children must not be 
employed for less than a living wage, and have 
established minimum wage commissions to de- 
termine proper wage standards. More than half 
the states have workmen's compensation com- 
missions to determine, under the law laid down 
by the legislature, how much indemnity employ- 
ers shall pay in cases of industrial accident. 

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LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

Usually commissions of this kind have been 
set up in addition to the existing state bureaus 
of labor statistics, factory inspection, and others 
dealing with related matters. Sometimes as 
many as eight or nine independent agencies con- 
cerned with labor problems have been in oper- 
ation at once in a state. 

The duplication, overlapping, confusion, and 
wastefulness of this situation were accentuated 
when the workmen's compensation commissions 
began to issue rules and carry on inspections 
in factories for safety. The result was conflict 
of authority with the factory inspection bureaus. 
Gradually it was recognized that accident pre- 
vention and compensation were parts of the same 
public function, and should be in the hands of 
the same public body. 

The next step was then obvious. It was to 
combine all the scattered bureaus which han- 
dled labor questions into one state industrial 
commission, and to give to this commission the 
power to investigate and issue rules to complete 
and apply the principles laid down in the statute 
law. Wisconsin, the first state to make this 
progressive change, was shortly afterward fol- 
lowed by New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illi- 
nois, and in less complete form by a few others. 

Regulation through Continuous Investigations 
The industrial commission is on the job con- 
tinuously, and not only at intervals like a legis- 

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ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

lature. It is not hurried to put through a mass 
of legislation before a specified date of adjourn- 
ment. It can therefore investigate thoroughly 
and in detail. It can issue different rules for 
different conditions, and can modify its rules 
when the conditions change or as soon as it dis- 
covers new and more effective remedies. 

The usual method for the preparation of an 
industrial commission order is somewhat as fol- 
lows: In connection with a given problem a 
joint committee of employers and employees is 
called together, which is assisted by technical 
experts and by representatives of the commis- 
sion. This committee provides for the represen- 
tation of interests which is necessary if all the 
facts are to be given due weight in its final de- 
cision. If such due weight is not given to all 
the facts, the decision may not be considered 
reasonable by the courts. The committee weighs 
the testimony of inspectors or investigators. It 
threshes out its differences, and finally reaches 
a recommendation which represents the knowl- 
edge and agreement of all. When this agree- 
ment has been reached, the recommendation is 
reported to the commission, which adopts it as 
its own and issues it as a tentative order. 

The next step is to hold a public hearing for 
all persons whose interests are affected. Oppor- 
tunity to be heard is essential to due process of 
law. After the public hearing the commission 

[131] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

drafts the rule in final form, and when it is 
officially published it goes into effect, with the 
full force of a law, on such date as the legisla- 
ture has previously designated. 

Even with this procedure the rules and orders 
of an industrial commission are not legally con- 
clusive and binding on the courts. If an em- 
ployer violates them, and is brought to trial, 
he is likely to offer as a defense that they are 
unreasonable in some respects. He may call 
them "class legislation," or say that they discrim- 
inate unfairly. In that case the court will have 
to examine into the constitutionality of the rules. 
But the legislature may limit the grounds on 
which the court may declaxe a rule unconsti- 
tutional. It may provide that a rule issued by 
the commission shall be nullified only for errors 
in law, and that if new facts are shown the rule 
shall be referred back to the commission for 
revision in accordance with those facts. 

Civil Service and Other Problems 

It is important that the officials appointed to 
enforce labor legislation be qualified for their 
work. Sometimes the operation of the laws has 
suffered because the inspectors or labor commis- 
sioners were selected for political reasons and 
were unsuited for their duties. The develop- 
ment of civil service has tended to correct this 
situation. In the best states there are careful 

[132] 



ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

examinations for all subordinates, tenure of of- 
fice is secure, and progress is being made toward 
more just salaries, promotions for merit, and 
the development of professional standards. 

As labor conditions become more complex, 
the task of drawing up progressive and humane 
legislation becomes more difficult. Specialists 
are needed to frame measures which will be 
workable, and which leave no loop-holes for 
easy evasion. Often enemies of labor laws seek 
to defeat their purpose by seeking to introduce 
"jokers," or apparently innocent clauses which 
would destroy much of the intended effect. 

Unless there is a penalty attached to violating 
a law, it is likely to become a dead letter. At 
the same time, if the penalty is too severe, judges 
are likely not to impose it. Sometimes in order 
to make sure that a violation is not allowed to 
continue, licenses are revoked, or a machine may 
be locked so that it cannot be used. 

Co-operation by Economic Pressure 
After all, the best enforcement of labor laws 
is secured when the co-operation of employers 
and employees themselves can be directly en- 
listed. Many improvements are directly to the 
interest of both, and if they can be made to 
realize this fact better results can be obtained 
than in any other way. Inspectors can at best 
visit the plant only every few months; work- 
men and employers are on the spot all the time. 

[133] 



LABOR PROBLEMS AND LABOR LEGISLATION 

One of the best methods for thus spurring em- 
ployers and workmen to act together for indus- 
trial betterment is through the constant economic 
pressure set up by social insurance. When there 
is a financial interest in reducing industrial evils, 
greater activity is noticeable in preventive work. 

International Labor Regulation 

Employers have frequently objected to pro- 
gressive labor measures which affected only their 
own state. They said they feared the competi- 
tion of rivals in other states who could operate 
under lower standards. Actual instances of in- 
dustries being crippled by scientific labor laws 
have, however, practically never been proved. 

Similar arguments are sometimes made when 
it is proposed to pass a labor law covering the 
whole country. Then the plea of international 
competition is raised. For this reason leading 
thinkers in many countries have advocated the 
adoption of labor protective standards on an in- 
ternational or world-wide basis. 

Such world-wide labor standards would pro- 
tect humane manufacturers in one nation from 
being held back in their improvements by the 
unchecked competition of those in more back- 
ward countries. They would also assist the 
backward countries in elevating their standards 
towards the level of the highest. 

Two international treaties embodying just 

[134] 



ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

such humane labor standards were in operation 
before the world war. One prohibited the use 
of poisonous phosphorus in the manufacture of 
matches, the other forbade night work for 
women. Each had been adopted by a dozen or 
more leading countries in both hemispheres. Be- 
sides these, there were a number of lesser re- 
ciprocal treaties dealing with rights of workmen 
under social insurance laws. 

The peace treaty of Versailles included a pro- 
gram of basic international standards, created a 
permanent international labor office at Geneva, 
and provided machinery for the preparation and 
adoption of additional protective standards. 
Several important labor treaties have already 
been wid.ely ratified with legislation to put them 
into effect. 

Labor legislation, then, is based on the rec- 
ognition of certain evils in our industrial sys- 
tem, and on the equal recognition of the com- 
mon interest of all in overcoming them. It 
seeks to bind all groups in the community — 
employers, workers, and the public — into a 
united movement for industrial welfare. 



[135] 



BRIEF LIST OF SELECTED READINGS 



I. EMPLOYMENT 



Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of 
Labor Legislation (1920 edition) Ch. VI, Ch. VIII, 5; John B. 
Andrews, A Practical Program for the Prevention of Unemploy- 
ment; Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. VIII, 
No. 2, pp. 127-202 ; American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. IX, 
Xo. 1, Vol. XI, No. 3, Vol. XII, No. 1. 

Additional Information. Final Report of the United States 
Commission on Industrial Relations, pp. 161-182; W. H. Beveridge, 
Unemployment, a Problem of Industry ; D. D. Lescohier, The Labor 
Market. 

II. WAGES 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of 
Labor Legislation, Ch. II, 2, Ch. IV; Proceedings of the Academy 
of Political Science, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 91-124. 

Additional Information. Monthly Labor Review of the United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics; I. M. Rubinow, "The Present 
Trend of Real Wages," in The Annals of The American Academy 
of Political and Social Science, January, 1917; Adams and Sumner, 
Labor Problems, pp. 142-174. 

III. HOURS 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of La- 
bor Legislation, Ch. V; Lauck and Sydenstricker, Conditions of 
Labor in American Industries, pp. 176-191. 

Additional Information. Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and 
Efficiency; H. M. Vernon, Industrial Fatigue and Efficiency. 

IV. SAFETY 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of 
Labor Legislation, Ch. VII ; Lauck and Sydenstricker, Conditions 



of Labor in American Industries, pp. 192-211; Proceedings of the 
Academy of Political Science, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 5-44. 

Additional Information. United States Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics, Bulletin No. 157, Industrial Accident Statistics. 

V. HEALTH 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of La- 
bor Legislation, Ch. VII; Lauck and Sydenstricker, Conditions 
of Labor in American Industries, pp. 315-353; Proceedings of the 
Academy of Political Science, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 23-28. 

Additional Information. Kober and Hanson, Diseases of Oc- 
cupation and Vocational Hygiene. 

VI. SELF GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of La- 
bor Legislation, Ch. Ill; Taussig, Principles of Economics, Vol. 
II, pp. 261-284, 303-322; Proceedings of the Academy of Political 
Science, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 47-88. 

Additional Information. Final Report of the United States 
Commission on Industrial Relations, pp. 16-21, 135-155, 183-201; 
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 237, Indus- 
trial Unrest in Great Britain. 

VII. SOCIAL INSURANCE 

Reading References. G. R. Miller, Social Insurance in America; 
Taussig, Principles of Economics, pp. 323-342; Commons and An- 
drews, Principles of Labor Legislation, Ch. VIII ; A. Epstein, 
Facing Old Age. 

VIII. ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS 

Reading References. Commons and Andrews, Principles of La- 
J wr Legislation, Ch, IX. 

Additional Information. American Labor Legislative Review, 
June, 1917, "Labor Law Administration in New York." 



